


Make your own world

by kawuli



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Inquisitor Backstory, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, shitty family feelings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-23
Updated: 2019-11-06
Packaged: 2020-01-25 14:28:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 27,659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18576370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kawuli/pseuds/kawuli
Summary: Saarebas and Arvaarad have a son--and become Tal-Vashoth because of it. (Does that sound romantic? It isn't.)When their son comes into his magic, he, like his mother, is leashed to Arvaarad. But the boy cannot accept his father's leash for long. He runs.When the explosion at the Divine's Conclave scatters the kith of the Valo-Kas, Adaar loses his family. Instead, he's stuck in the middle of a war, fighting alongside an unlikely bunch of companions.What is he getting himself into?





	1. A name

The boy was nine years old the first time lightning jumped between his fingers. 

He was at home, alone with his mother, and her eyes had gone tight, lips pressed together as she came over to take his hands. She pressed his small hands together, her own warm broad palms engulfing them, and sighed.

"Oh, Imekari," she'd said. "You have been set a difficult path." 

He looked up at her, studied the scars left around her mouth from stitches long since torn out. Looked down at her wrists, still circled by heavy bands of metal. She took her hands away. He turned his palms up, then down, studying them, but they looked the same as they always had. The lightning had gone as quickly as it came. 

"Does this mean Arvaarad will leash me now too?" He tried to keep his voice strong, steady, but worry seeped through enough to make his mother give him a sad look. 

"We don't have to tell him yet," she said. "I'll show you how to lock the magic away when you don't need it." 

She did show him, and he tried to keep the secret. But before his tenth year was over, he came home to see his mother on her knees, frozen with pain, the Leash in Arvaarad's hand glowing brightly, power the boy had never noticed before setting his teeth on edge. 

He hadn't thought, only reacted, flinging out a crackling bolt of lightning that, because it was so unexpected, knocked Arvaarad to the ground, the Leash rolling away. The boy was quick enough to grab it, twist as he'd seen Arvaarad do, releasing his mother to slump, hands on the ground, head hanging, breath coming in harsh gasps. 

He didn't have time for relief before Arvaarad snatched the Leash away and gave the boy his first taste of its power.

"Imesaar-bas!" Arvaarad roared. "My own son is a menace as great as any that walks Thedas, and he keeps that knowledge from me?" 

The boy couldn't answer, couldn't move, fire and ice at once shooting through his veins, breath short. 

Then, as suddenly as it had begun it stopped, as Arvaarad spun to face the boy's mother. "You!" The Leash glowed again as he turned it on her. "How dare you hide him from me." 

The boy's mother gasped out stuttering apologies through clenched teeth while Arvaarad watched, his face blank. 

* * *

"Imekari, you must learn control." His mother's voice was kind, her hands cool as she helped him up. His limbs twitched with the memory of pain, his head echoing with Arvaarad's shouted displeasure. 

He was sixteen, his horns beginning to curl back from his forehead, itching as they grew. Arvaarad was training him now, preparing the boy to join his band of mercenaries. 

Mistakes were not tolerated. Nor were excuses, not even when hours of practice left the boy too drained to carry out Arvaarad's commands. 

His mother led him to the bench by the door, where he sat, catching his breath, feeling his heart pumping mana along with blood into his heavy limbs. 

* * *

"Saarebas!" Arvaarad's voice carried clearly through the chaos of a bandit attack. The boy spun to see Arvaarad struggling with a pair of rogues whose daggers moved quick as light. Lightning jumped from one to the other, stunning them long enough for Arvaarad's sword to open one's belly, the other's thigh, blood shooting in a long arc and pooling on the ground. An archer turned to flee, but the boy caught him in a shower of electricity, and he fell. The boy turned to find another enemy, but there were none. 

Arvaarad's men turned toward him, looking around to see that everyone had made it though the fight without major injuries. They were all Tal-Vashoth, all followed Arvaarad as loyally as any Karataam of the Qun, and all avoided even looking at the boy if they could help it. 

His mother was back at their camp, trying to start a fire with damp wood after an overnight thunderstorm. As they entered the little clearing, the boy saw her shake her head in frustration and make fire in her fist.

Arvaarad's hand went immediately to the Leash at his belt, and with a snarl he activated it. "Woman, are you so stupid you cannot even light a fire without inviting demons to help?" 

She was frozen, held in place too close to what was now a crackling fire. Arvaarad walked over slowly, watched as the flames grew.

Once again, the boy reacted without thought. This time, though, he was older, stronger, matching Arvaarad for height and strength. He flung out a bolt of lightning and followed it with a leaping tackle, snatching the Leash as his shoulder drove into Arvaarad's stomach. 

He rolled, got to his feet as his mother, released now, shuffled back, still cowering. 

Arvaarad stood a little more slowly--deliberately. He reached for his sword and glared at the boy. "Shok ebasit hissra, imekari," he said. "Your useless struggle will end. Now." 

"I am no longer a child," the boy said, tightening his grip on the Leash. "And I will no longer be bound by you." He was surprised at how calm he felt. How easy it was to keep his voice steady.

"Stupid child," Arvaarad snarled, "What purpose does this rebellion serve? Come here." 

The boy looked at his mother, whose eyes were wide with fear. Then he looked back to Arvaarad, to the men who all eyed him warily, keeping their distance. He felt the dissonant power of the rod he held, the too-familiar pain built into the wood and metal.

"Goodbye, Mother," he said quietly. Then, as Arvaarad began to run toward him, the boy spun a cage of lightning around the whole camp. As he turned to run, he heard the hiss and spit of electricity, the thud as a body was thrown back. 

* * *

After three days of running, the boy stumbled into a cheap tavern hungry, filthy, and exhausted. He almost walked right back out when he saw the cluster of Tal-Vashoth at a corner table.

But something about them made him pause long enough for one, a tall woman carrying a warrior's greatsword, to glance up and see him. They looked at each other for a long moment, then she smiled. "Come sit, kid," she said, and when she called him a child it wasn't the insult Arvaarad made it. "You look like you could use a hot meal."

He couldn't even consider refusing. 

Of course, then they asked him his name. He could have given them his family name, the one Arvaarad had chosen, the one the boy had always used on the rare occasions he needed one for dealing with outsiders. But "Adaar" was Arvaarad's. It wasn't _his_.

There _was_ no name that was truly his. "Imekari," his mother still called him: "child." Ever since he'd first shown magic, Arvaarad had called him Imesaar-bas--mageling child--or Saarebas. He didn't want those, either. 

The woman smiled a little as his hesitation dragged out. "Ah, well," she said. "I didn't have one either, when I got away. I'm called Shokrakar now."

The boy felt his eyes go wide. A woman, _obviously_ a woman, bearing a greatsword, and calling herself _rebel_. Who were these people?

One of the others looked down at his drink, then up at the boy. "Issala, we can call you, until we come up with something better." 

The boy raised an eyebrow--calling himself "dust" did not seem much better than the options he'd discarded--and the man's mouth curled up at one corner. "'Ebost issala' -- 'You're dust' -- that's what they told me when I left. I figured they'd given me a new name." He paused, took a breath, then continued. "They call me Kaariss now, so you can borrow Issala for a while if you'd like."

The boy looked down at his hands, his clothes. "Well," he said, swallowing a choked laugh. "I can't say it doesn't fit." 

* * *

It became a game. 

The next night in the tavern: "Maraas, we should call you, always off by yourself. Come have a drink."

When they talked about leaving for the next job, and he started to say goodbye: "What, you think we'd leave you behind? Qalaba, we'll have to call you, if you don't have more sense than that."

When they were ambushed by bandits: "Rethost, that's who you are. Our protector. That guy would've had me for sure if you hadn't paralyzed him.

A few days later, around the campfire. "Asaaranda!" Kaariss announced triumphantly. "That's what we'll call you." 

Shokrakar grinned. "Thunderstorm," she said. "Sounds about right. Matches those lightning-hands you've got _and_ your temper." 

The boy tried it out. "Asaaranda," he said quietly, tasting it. He felt electricity gathering at his fingertips and instead of pulling it back he let it wreath his hands in flashes of lightning. "Asaaranda." The name rolled out, rumbling like thunder.

Taarlok nodded. "It is a good name." 

Asaaranda let the lightning fall from his hands and ground into the earth. "Yes," he said. "It is good."


	2. Valo-Kas

It was raining, a fine mist that seeped into everything. It was cold, and dark, and Asaaranda had long since run out of ways to avoid cramped muscles and boredom. They'd been here since before dawn, waiting for some idiot thug to ride through the pass below.

"That fucking courier better not have been lying," Kaariss grumbled. "She told me the man was to meet her at the crossroads before dawn, and that's in a couple hours."

Sataa snorted. "Because bandit chieftains are always so reliable. Remind me, Asaaranda, why you made us get here so early?"

"Because bandit chieftains are so reliable, they never change plans at the last minute."

Ashaad turned away from the road to glare at Sataa. "You're lucky he didn't make us come a week ago, just in case." He turned back before Asaaranda could tell him to keep lookout instead of complaining.

"Hush, all of you," Asaaranda said instead. "It's not an ambush if you're so loud they hear you a mile off."

Sataa opened her mouth to respond, then closed it, rolling her eyes and digging in her pack for something to eat.

It was another hour before Ashaad Two came running up the path, motioning for the scouts to move down into the pass. They jumped up, all business now, and began to make their way down the steep slope. Asaaranda followed a little behind, settling into a crouch on a rock outcrop shielded by scruffy bushes. As he brushed by, the leaves dropped ice-cold water into his collar, down his back, and he sighed. He was more than ready for this miserable job to be over.

Ashaad Two paused to report: 10 men, plus the chieftain, all mounted. Archers, swordsmen, but he hadn't seen a mage.

Not terrible odds, but worse than they'd hoped. Ah well, too late to change anything now.

As Ashaad Two moved away, hefting a spear and testing it for balance, Asaaranda heard hoofbeats. The bandits were moving fast--they knew this was a good place for an ambush just as well as Asaaranda did. No doubt that's why they'd timed it this way, arriving in the last long, cold hours before dawn, when sleep called most persuasively and bodies and minds were both sluggish.

Asaaranda took a deep breath and stood up. He slammed the butt of his staff into the ground and watched as lightning jumped between men and horses. The loose formation of riders shattered into the chaos of panicked men and horses. Asaaranda turned, tossed a barrier over Sataa and Kaariss as they charged forward, and set about picking his targets.

They managed to catch two of the horses. Convenient, since they'd also captured four bandits, including the chief. The other six men lay dead, strewn along the path. The rest of the horses had bolted, who could say where, but two horses could carry four bound men, and they could make better time this way than they would dragging the captives along on foot.

It was finally getting light, the rain slowing, when they arrived at the gates of Lord Blanchard's manor. The gate guards grinned when they saw the captives, offered congratulations as they motioned for the group to enter the courtyard. The Lord's steward stood inside, and Asaaranda handed him the reins of the horses.

"Well done, ser," the steward said. "My master has asked me to proffer his thanks--and there is a hot meal awaiting you in the kitchen."

Asaaranda could feel the men behind him relax. "That is most kind," he said carefully, before turning. "Go on, get fed," he told them, with a jerk of his head motioning them toward the low stone building.

He followed behind with the steward, who had handed the captives off to another guard. "Your payment," the steward said, handing over a heavy purse. Asaaranda weighed in in his hand, glanced inside to make sure the coin was gold and not copper, then nodded.

"Lord Blanchard thanks you for your service." And with a small bow, the steward disappeared.

* * *

"We're going _where_?" Taarlok asked, incredulous. "Boss, why would we go to that Void-taken shithole?"

Shokrakar didn't react, her face calm. "Because after this job, we could take the rest of the year off and not miss the coin." When Taarlok still looked suspicious, she went on. "Besides, having the Divine owe us a favor? You can't say that won't come in handy someday." Taarlok still didn't look _satisfied_ , but he was at least pacified.

Asaaranda couldn't really disagree with either of them. The money was good, the politics were good, but some mountain village in Fereldan did not sound like a great place to spend what might well stretch into several weeks. And providing security for discussions between templars and the human mages would be like walking into a fight between dragons--who's to say it wouldn't be better to let them kill each other rather than all but asking to get burned.

But Shokrakar had made her decision, and Asaaranda didn't question it. She must have her reasons, and he suspected there was more to it than she was telling them.

By the time they arrived in Haven, Asaaranda had revised his opinion. Shokrakar had _better_ have a good reason for bringing them here. Days of seasickness crossing from the Free Marches, a full week of riding to get to this nowhere town, and now Asaaranda couldn't turn around without someone giving him shit. The templars gave him dirty looks because he was a mage, and the mages didn't trust him because he was Qunari--never mind that actually he wasn't, as they should well know given the lack of chains and the fact he could open his fucking mouth.

He thought the mages sounded like a pack of bratty kids, whining about having anyone watching over them. Templars didn't use the Leash the way Arvaarad did, after all. But it was a templar who started the first fight in the tavern.

"Your kind know how to deal with mages," the man snarled. "So how come you're walking around like a real person?"

Asaaranda knew better than to use magic, but he did step forward, looming over the man. If the templar had been smarter, or less drunk, that might've made him think twice, but as it was he just got angrier. "Maybe we should chain you up, huh?"

"You could try," Asaaranda growled. "Let's see how that goes for you."

The man reached for his sword, but Asaaranda's fist hit his shoulder hard enough to knock him back. He managed to duck sideways to avoid Asaaranda's follow-up to his other side, then scrambled back, giving himself enough time and distance to actually draw his sword. Asaandra readied his staff. He still didn't cast--he might be pissed off and a little drunk, but he wasn't that stupid. Using magic in this town right now to fight _anyone_ would get him killed--worse still fighting a templar. But a staff was a weapon even before any magic had poured into it, and he was quick enough to block the templar's strikes with hardened oak rather than fire or lightning.

It wasn't long before they were interrupted by a dark haired woman in the armor of the Seekers and the permanently-scowling blond templar who was organizing the supposedly-neutral soldiers trying to keep the peace. The man shoved the templar against the nearest wall, while the woman's hand splayed across Asaaranda's chest, holding him in place. "Stand down," she snapped. "You are violating the Divine's truce. Give me your weapon."

Asaaranda let the blade of his staff anchor itself in the dirt. "No," he said. "I don't take orders from you."

She glared at him. "Oh? Who _do_ you take orders from, then, because if it's--"

"Ah, Seeker Cassandra," Shokrakar ambled up, taking in the scene. "That's one of my men. He'll come with me." Her voice was light, but the look she shot Asaaranda promised more for him later.

The two women stared at each other, then the Seeker nodded. "Control your men, Ser, or they'll have to leave."

Asaaranda slung his staff across his back and walked toward Shokrakar. "I didn't start it," he grumbled.

"Save it," she snapped, walking past Haven's gates and out to the Valo-Kas campsite. Once they were well away from the walls she stopped suddenly and spun to face him.

"You know better than to fight the _vashedan_ templars, Adaar."

Adaar. Well, now he was definitely in trouble.

"He started it!" Asaaranda protested, knowing it was futile but doing it anyway. "He drew his sword! What was I supposed to do?"

"Walk away," Shokrakar said. "You walk away."

Asaaranda gaped at her. " _You_ are telling me to walk away from something like that? Am I dreaming? Is this the Fade? Since when do you let anyone insult you and just walk away, much less some pissant human templar?"

Her face went still. "You can't always fight," she said, her voice clipped and precise. "There's one of you against too many of them. You're lucky you _can_ walk away." Her left hand went to encircle her right wrist, fingers tracing scars from the reeducators' shackles.

Then she shook her head and sighed. "Come on, it's late," she said. "Go to bed."

 

* * *

 

It was the pain that woke him. Searing, burning-freezing-tearing pain in his hand, shooting up his arm. It was an effort not to cry out.

It was only after the wave had crested, slid back toward mere agony, that Asaaranda could take in his surroundings.

That didn't improve the situation. He was shackled, hands and feet, kneeling on the floor in some dungeon, a ring of swords pointed towards him. He recognized the woman who came in next--at first she was just a familiar face he couldn't place, but then she spoke.

"Tell me why we shouldn't kill you now." The Seeker--Cassandra. "The Conclave is destroyed. Everyone who attended is dead." Her voice didn't quite waver, but still full of emotion. "Except you."

Asaaranda didn't know what to say. Everyone? Shokrakar? Kaariss? Taarlok? _The Divine?_

"Explain this." Cassandra grabbed his hand, which hissed and sparked, leaving him struggling to breathe.

"I--can't," he said, through gritted teeth.

"What do you mean, _you can't_?" Cassandra snarled. This close she looked wild, barely controlling herself. Dangerous.

"I don't know _what_ that is, or how it got there." Asaaranda tried to sound unthreatening, but he didn't think he'd succeeded. It wasn't something he usually worried about.

" _You're lying_ " Cassandra lunged for him, but another woman emerged from the shadows to pull her back.

"We need him, Cassandra." Orlesian accent, tempered by years away. Cassandra backed toward the wall, and the Orlesian woman turned to face Asaaranda.

"Do you remember what happened?" She asked. This woman was all control: spine of steel, icy blue eyes.

Asaaranda tried to think. His head ached, his hand burned, his memories were jumbled and fractured. "I remember...running. Things were chasing me...and then...a woman?"

"A woman?" Orlesian asked.

"She...reached out to me, but then--" What had happened? She had been there, and then she wasn't, and then falling, falling for an impossibly long time.

He couldn't piece it together.

And then Cassandra took him outside. And he looked up, saw the swirling chaos in the sky, fell to his knees as his hand lit up as though he'd grabbed the flaming end of a torch. Cassandra just watched, stoic as always.

But that was far better than anyone else's reaction. People lined the path as they headed out of Haven, yelling or grumbling, glaring or shaking fists. Asaaranda felt the tingling rush of magic down his arms, forced his hands to fists and fought back the sparks that wanted to leap from his fingertips to protect him. Any magic, and this crowd would kill him. Even if Cassandra tried to protect him, there were too many people. They would both be torn apart by the mob.

Thankfully, once they passed the gates, the only people they saw were soldiers and scouts, all of them too busy, too exhausted to pay him much attention.

Until they reached what Cassandra called a Fade Rift. One minute, he was looking for the next demon and cursing the walking stick of a staff he'd picked up. The next minute, a bald elf had grabbed his wrist and shoved it toward the glowing green _thing_ floating absurdly in midair.

He was ready for it this time, but after the first searing pain, the burning sensation eased to little more than discomfort, until the strange beam of light connecting him to the rift shattered, and with it, the rift burst into fragments and disappeared.

"What the fuck was _that_?" Asaaranda snapped.

The elf frowned and ignored him. "Cassandra. It seems your prisoner can close rifts--and he may be a mage, a Saarebas even, but I find it hard to imagine any mage having the power to create the breach."

"Do I look like a damn Saarebas? My mouth isn't sewn shut and I'm walking around without a leash. I'm not Saarebas, I'm not even Qunari, and you still haven't told me what the fuck this _is_ " Asaaranda waved his glowing left hand in the elf's direction, but while the elf said nothing, a dwarf sauntered up.

"It can close those damn Fade rifts at least," the dwarf said, settling some kind of crossbow across his back. "Good to know. I thought we'd be ass deep in demons forever."

"What's with the crossbow?" Asaaranda didn't have the patience to go along with the dwarf's jokes, but that was a serious weapon.

"Bianca? She's gorgeous, isn't she?"

"Your crossbow is named Bianca."

"Yep. And _I_ am Varric Tethras. Good to meet you. Let's go, there's a shitload more demons further up the mountain."

"Absolutely not." Cassandra said. "Varric, your assistance is appreciated, but--"

"Have you been in the valley lately, Seeker? Your forces aren't in control anymore. You need me."

Cassandra glared, then sighed and turned toward the path.

"Since we seem to be working together," the elf said, with only a little less coldness, "My name is Solas."

"How do you know so much about all this?" Asaaranda asked.

"I have spent a good deal of time studying the Fade," Solas said.

"Solas is an apostate," Cassandra said. "Like you."

"Technically, all mages are apostates now," Solas said mildly.

Cassandra didn't respond, just kept walking up the path.

* * *

Nothing could have prepared Asaaranda for the Temple of Sacred Ashes--what little remained of it. After a short, messy fight up the valley, backed up by the soldiers and their blond Templar Commander, they entered the destroyed temple.

Silence fell. The path was strewn with bones. Still-smoldering corpses raised their arms as if begging, sprawled where they'd fallen, crawled on hands and knees from an inferno they would never escape. Asaaranda was torn--he didn't want to see any of this, but he couldn't stop himself from looking for Shokrakar's distinctive spiraling horns, or Sataa's with their silverite tips, or Taarlok's mismatched broken pair. He didn't see any horns in the mess--but that was hardly a comfort. A small crew of Tal-Vashoth in a crowd of humans, all reduced to bones and corpses... he might never find them. Never find a piece of bone or armor or a sword to take to--who? No Qunari would care about the weapons of a bunch of traitors, no human would care about the death of a few oxmen, and they'd been each others' family, each others' karataam, so if everyone was dead, he was the only one left to mourn.

He didn't even know how.

It was with difficulty that he forced the thoughts away, blinked back threatening tears, and kept walking.

And then the silence was shattered by a booming voice, far off. Shattered again by Varric. " _Shit_. You know this is red lyrium, Seeker?"

And then a vision spun itself up in front of them. Asaaranda jerked back, wary of demons and their tricks, but this was something else. Something different. The divine, held by swirling ribbons of blood. A menacing voice shouting orders. _His_ voice, breaking in and disrupting whatever horror was in progress. And then the vision faded.

"What was _that_?" Asaaranda asked, to the world in general. Nobody seemed to have an answer.

When they reached the massive rift floating above their heads, below the breach, Solas took charge again. "You will have to open this rift, then close it properly. Opening it, however, will likely attract attention from the other side."

"That means demons!" Cassandra turned, called to the archers on the walls, the soldiers in the ruined courtyard.

Asaaranda glanced at his companions, then reached his hand toward the rift.

* * *

He woke up in a bed.

He could really do without the thing where he kept waking up in places he didn't recognize.

At least this time the memories came back when he concentrated. Opening the rift. A huge fucking Pride Demon. Disrupting the rift to stun it, over and over, showering it in flames in between. Hand burning. He looked at it. The skin was reddened, chapped as though from a cold wind.

An elf, young, of indeterminate gender, came in, saw him, and dropped the tray they were carrying before falling to their knees as though Asaaranda was some kind of king instead of just confused.

"They say you saved us! You stopped the breach from growing!"

"What are you doing?" Assaranda snapped. "Just... stop that. Leave me be."

"Seeker Cassandra said she wanted to be informed as soon as you awoke. She said, 'At once'."

"How long have I been asleep?" It had been...daytime, that was the best he could do, when they trekked up the cursed mountain. It was daytime now. He might have been asleep for an hour or a day, though the latter seemed more likely.

"Three days, ser," the elf said, getting to their feet and backing toward the door. "I'll go tell Seeker Cassandra. She's waiting in the Chantry. At once, she said!"

The door closed.

Shit.

Asaaranda climbed out of bed and looked around the room. A trunk in one corner contained armor, of a sort. It was better than nothing, and who knows where his own armor had been left. At least he wouldn't have to go out in beige pajamas.

He was expecting jeers again. Dirty looks. Thrown rocks even. He was not expecting the crowd that had lined the streets, stragglers running up and craning to see over the crowds. Everyone was silent, fists raised to their chests in salute. He heard murmuring start up behind him.

"That's him!"

"He stopped the Breach from growing!"

"I thought he was supposed to close it completely?"

Asaaranda grit his teeth and made it into the Chantry.

Behind a closed door at the back, an argument was going on. One speaker was Cassandra. The other was the stuck-up Chancellor, who'd decided even before the explosion that his job was to be the world's biggest pain in the ass.

"The Qunari _failed_ , Seeker!" Chancellor Roderick was saying.

Asaaranda pushed open the door. "Chain him!" Roderick continued, and Asaaranda had to give the man credit for refusing to be intimidated. "This prisoner must be taken to Val Royeaux for questioning."

The Templars in the doorway hesitated--Templars! Hesitating to obey an order!--that was about as surprising as the hole in the sky.

"Disregard that," Cassandra said, calm but with a steel edge to her voice. "And leave us."

"So, you still think I blew up your Conclave?" Asaaranda tried not to snarl, but what more did they want from him?

"You are most certainly still a suspect," the Chancellor snapped.

"No, he is not," Cassandra replied.

The other woman in the room stepped forward, and by some trick of posture and motion shifted from a bystander, barely worth noticing, to the most threatening person in the room--impressive, in a room that contained the Seeker.

"Someone was behind the explosion at the Conclave," the woman said. Orlesian accent, softened by years away. Red hair slipping past her shawl. Deliberate movement, so subtle that the chain mail she wore barely rattled. Voice deadly cold.

" _I_ am a suspect?" Roderick squawked.

"You, and many others."

"But _not_ the prisoner."

Cassandra cut in. "I heard the voices in the temple. The Divine called to him for help."

Roderick looked like he couldn't actually believe what he was hearing. It was a little gratifying. "So his survival, that _thing_ on his hand...all coincidence?"

"Providence." Cassandra's reply was immediate. "The Maker sent him to us in our darkest hour."

And Asaaranda had been hoping this conversation was becoming _less_ dangerous for him. Apparently not.

"Seriously? Five minutes ago you wanted me dead, and now I'm some kind of savior?"

"I was wrong," Cassandra said, seemingly unconcerned. "Perhaps I still am. I will not, however, pretend you were not exactly what we needed, when we needed it."

"The Breach remains," Leliana added, "And your mark is our only hope of closing it."

Roderick interrupted before Asaaranda could begin to consider a response.

"This is not for you to decide!"

Cassandra slammed a heavy book down onto the table. “You know what this is, Chancellor? A writ from the Divine, granting us authority to act. As of this moment, I declare the Inquisition reborn. We will close the Breach, we will find those responsible, and we will restore order with or without your approval.”

Roderick fled. Asaaranda wished he could do the same, if he was being perfectly honest.

Instead, he looked at the two women. They were watching him like they expected a response.

"The Inquisition of old?"

The redheaded woman answered. “It preceded the Chantry: People who banded together to restore order in a world gone mad.”

"So you want to start a holy war."

"We are already at war," Cassandra replied. "You are already involved. Whether the war is holy... that depends on what happens next."

Asaaranda desperately wished Shokrakar was here, or Taarlok, or even Kaariss. Any one of them would know better how to deal with these women, this situation, the insanity of it all. If nothing else, they'd have his back if things went bad.

Things had already _gone_ bad. That's why the kith weren't here with him. Without them, he was alone, and a lone Tal-Vashoth, especially one suspected of killing Maker knows how many people, surely couldn't expect a long or uneventful life.

"Fine. I'll stay, for now."

"That's all we ask," said the redhead.

"Help us fix this before it's too late," Cassandra said, extending a hand.

Asaaranda groaned internally, but shook Cassandra's hand anyway.

What was he getting himself into?


	3. Herald

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A note about dialogue: Sometimes I use the exact cut scene lines, sometimes I summarize, sometimes Asaaranda's reactions aren't among the in-game choices, sometimes I just take the conversations in a slightly different direction. This fic is more canon-adjacent than strictly canon-compliant.

Asaaranda was trying to fix the blade on his borrowed staff when Cassandra found him. If he had to use a scavenged stick it could at least not rattle whenever he moved it. 

"Come," Cassandra said. "You should meet the others." 

Asaaranda leaned the staff against the wall of his quarters and followed her to the Chantry. In the dim indoor light the mark on his hand stood out. He glared at it.

"Does it bother you?" Cassandra asked. 

"No," Asaaranda said. It ached dully, flashed painfully on occasion, but since that first desperate scramble up to the Breach it was like an old wound, not quite healed but no longer dangerous. It didn't slow him down.

"At least it's stable now, just like the Breach." Cassandra replied. "Solas believes that a second attempt might succeed – provided the mark has more power. The same level of power used to open the Breach in the first place. That is not easy to come by.”

"Oh, good. Let's take this thing that was trying to kill me, throw magic at it--while it's still _part of my arm_ \--and then fling all that at a giant hole in the sky. There's no way _that_ could go wrong." 

"And people say _I'm_ a pessimist," Cassandra replied. But the look she gave Asaaranda wasn't unfriendly.

She opened the door into the back room. Arrayed behind a table were the redhead from yesterday, the blond Templar, and a woman who looked Antivan, and was the only one wearing silk instead of armor. 

Cassandra made brusque introductions. "You've met Commander Cullen, leader of the Inquisition's forces."

“It was only for a moment on the field. I’m pleased you survived.” 

Either the man didn't remember breaking up Asaaranda's fight with the templar before the conclave, or he had decided to ignore it. 

Asaaranda just nodded, as Cassandra moved on. “This is lady Josephine Montilyet, our ambassador and chief diplomat.”

“You're... it's a pleasure to finally meet you," she said, her Antivan accent confirming his assumption, and the faint blush crawling up her cheeks suggesting a reason for her strained composure. What was it with human women?

"And of course you know Sister Leliana." The redhead. Had he learned her name before? Maybe. It had been a long few days, but Shokrakar would still be disappointed... except she was dead. 

“My position here involves a degree of…”

“She is our spymaster.” Asaaranda had to swallow a laugh at Cassandra's bluntness, and at Leliana's resigned look in response.

“Yes. Tactfully put, Cassandra.”

Asaaranda looked around the room. It was a place for Shokrakar, or Taarlok--negotiating, making plans, drawing up contracts. He was confident enough with his ability to fight, even to lead a fight, but talking, negotiating, strategizing... he'd always been impatient with all that. Just point him at a target and he'd figure out how to take it out. 

Unfortunately, right now his target was a hole in the damn sky and he had no idea what to do about that. 

"So why am I here?" he asked. 

"I told you, your mark needs more power to close the breach."

"Which means we need to talk to the rebel mages," Leliana jumped in.

Cullen sighed. "I still say the Templars could serve just as well." He sounded tired, and Asaaranda got the impression that this argument had been going on for a while. 

"We need power, Commander--" Cassandra started. 

Asaaranda ignored the argument, watching his companions' faces instead. Cassandra was as subtle as a brick wall--everything from her scowl to her open posture said she would consider any attempt to disguise her intentions a waste of time. Her sword arm meant she didn't have to worry about someone taking offense.

Cullen was almost as obvious, but where Cassandra played offense, the Commander was more defensive. He seemed incapable of standing still--folding his arms across his chest, dropping one hand to the pommel of his sword while gesturing with the other, shifting his weight from side to side. 

Leliana, on the other hand... She stood completely still, watching, her face blank and her posture neutral. Definitely a spy, then, and most likely a very good one. 

"There is no point in arguing," Josephine broke in--apparently she was ambassador within the Inquisition as well as with outsiders. 'Neither group will even speak to us yet."

The others all turned to her, and she went on. "The Chantry has denounced the Inquisition--and you, specifically." She nodded toward Asaaranda.

"What, they still think I caused this whole mess?"

"That is not the entirety of it any longer," Josephine said. "Some are calling you--a Qunari--the 'Herald of Andraste'. That frightens the Chantry."

"The _what_?" Asaaranda stared at her. "Why?"

Cassandra explained. "People saw what you did at the temple, how you stopped the Breach from growing. They have also heard about the woman seen in the rift when we first found you. They believe that was Andraste."

Asaaranda glared around the room. 

Cullen looked rather too amused at his discomfort. "It's quite the title, isn't it?" he said. 

"They're crazy! I'm not--what even is a Herald supposed to be? A Herald of Andraste is _what_ exactly?"

Josephine tried to hide a smile behind her hand. Cullen had the decency to look at least a little sympathetic. 

"I'm not sure anyone's thought that far ahead," he said. 

"The point is," Leliana cut in, with a sharp look in Cullen's direction. "People are desperate for a sign of hope..."

"They must be desperate, if they think _I'm_ that sign." Asaaranda took a deep breath and tried to calm down. Fucking Herald of flaming Andraste. Shit. "So...what, the Chantry's going to attack us? Rather than, oh, I don't know, dealing with the hole in the sky?"

"With what?" Cullen asked. "The templars left the chantry, so the clerics may talk plenty, but that's all they really can do."

"The Chantry is telling everyone you'll just make the Breach worse," Josephine added. "And scaring off anyone who might want to help us." 

"Great." And to think, this morning Asaaranda's biggest worry was the rattling blade on his staff. 

"There is one thing you can do," Leliana said, and she smiled a little as she said it--a peace offering, perhaps. "There's a cleric in the Hinterlands who wants to talk to you. Mother Giselle--she knows those involved, maybe she could help us."

Asaaranda was skeptical that another Chantry mother would help matters any, but at least it was something to do. "Fine. I'll go talk to her." 

"Good," Cassandra said. "I will go with you." 

* * *

"She wants us to _what_?" 

The Hinterlands had been like the Wounded Coast outside Kirkwall, just without the 'coast' part. An unending supply of bandits, ambushes around every turn, and way too many hills and forests and rubble to hide in. Templar deserters and crazy mages and people taking advantage of the chaos, it was impossible to tell sometimes. But if nothing else came of it, at least the Inquisition could protect a few refugees from the insanity.

And it _didn't_ look like anything else would come of it, if Mother Giselle's 'help' was to suggest some kind of diplomatic mission to Val Royeaux. One led by Asaaranda, specifically.

"She told you--talk to the clerics. They'll see you aren't a monster," Josephine said.

Asaaranda straighted to his full height, but resisted the urge to summon any visible magic. "Are you sure about that?" he asked. "I might just make it worse."

Cullen looked satisfied--like Asaaranda had won him an argument. "Besides, for all we know you would be walking into a trap." 

"In Val Royeaux? I'd probably walk into five before I got past the gates." Asaaranda's distaste for Val Royeaux had been an ongoing joke in the Valo-Kas for years, but he still maintained that at least on a battlefield you could see who was trying to kill you. And nobody expected you to be _nice_ to them.

"I will go with him," Cassandra said. "What choice do we have? We have to do _something_."

"Why don't you just go without me?" Asaaranda asked, "at least then I won't accidentally commit any more heresies in front of the whole Chantry." 

They all seemed to be considering it. "Cassandra and Leliana _were_ the Right and Left Hands of the Divine," Josephine mused. "Perhaps they would be the best emissaries?"

"And if we are killed, you will not lose the only means of closing the rifts," Leliana said, matter-of-fact. "It could work." 

Cassandra sighed. 

"Come, Cassandra," Leliana teased, "I know how much you've missed the Orlesian nobility."

"Ha!" Cassandra glared up at Asaaranda, then back at Leliana. "Fine. Let's go then, so we can get this over with."

* * *

The letter came not long after Leliana and Cassandra returned. Leliana handed it to him during one of their meetings and he unfolded the page.

*Adaar, I heard you were dead, and then a prisoner, and then maybe you fell out of the Fade and landed on your head and forgot who you were. Seriously, stop that. We still haven't been paid.

Some of our kith made it out of that giant shit hole full of demons after the explosion. The rest are dead or missing. I don't know how many were rounded up by angry humans. If you're not dead and you remember who you are, help me find our brothers and sisters.

Shokrakar

P.S. If you forgot who you are, I'll remind you: Your name is Adaar. You're Vashoth. You didn't get paid for being blown up.

P.P.S. If you are dead, disregard this message.*

Asaaranda was gripping the page so tightly that the page started to tear.

He would say that it couldn't be real, except who but Shokrakar would be able to make him want to laugh, cry, and punch her in so few words? 

So he wasn't the only one left. His kith hadn't been completely destroyed in that Void-taken explosion. After so many weeks of more bad news, more responsibility, more weight on his shoulders, finally something good.

"We'll help however we can, of course," Josephine broke the silence, a little hesitant. "There may be nobles denying them passage?"

"They'd do more than that," Leliana said. "Tal-Vashoth mercenaries escaping the explosion that killed the Divine? They're probably captives. We could send agents."

"Or soldiers," Cullen added. "If we would rather not be subtle about it."

Asaaranda looked at the three of them. There was no reluctance, no resentment at having to spend resources on a bunch of Tal-Vashoth with no ties to the Inquisition beyond a long-finished contract. No, they were already making plans to help, without him even asking.

Asaaranda wasn't used to treatment like that. Especially not from humans.

"Agents, I think," he said, once he was sure he could control his voice. It still sounded rougher than usual. "The fewer people we piss off the better, right?" 

Leliana gave him a small smile and nodded. "They'll leave today," she said. "If that's all...?" She turned to Josephine, who nodded. "I'll see to it right away."

Asaaranda turned, opened the door, and held it as the other three walked out. Cullen was the last, and he fell into step with Asaaranda. "Leliana will get them back," he said. "Her people are the best."

"I appreciate-- this," Asaaranda replied, lost for words. "I know there's a thousand things to do and this is... I didn't expect it."

Cullen paused to glance up at Asaaranda, then kept walking. "We could hardly abandon them--I... I couldn't forgive myself for leaving men imprisoned when we have the means to free them."

They walked in silence until they reached the heavy wooden doors to the Chantry, now flung wide. Cullen seemed to breathe easier in the open air. Asaaranda echoed his deep sigh, then looked over to see a messenger standing near the door. He nodded to Cullen, who kept walking toward the practice field, and stopped to see what the man wanted.

* * *

It was raining on the Storm Coast. It was always raining on the Storm Coast.

Asaaranda almost wished he had ignored the messenger's invitation, but he couldn't turn down a chance to meet the famous--or infamous, depending how you looked at it--Iron Bull and his Chargers. Asaaranda had heard of them--most mercs who worked in Orlais had. Some Tal-Vashoth with a whole crew of humans, elves and dwarves, well-known for solving unsolvable problems. Getting a company like that to work for the Inquisition was worth the slog through the rain and down the steep slopes to where the fighting had already started. 

The Chargers were as good as their reputation, including the Iron Bull, who stood half a hand taller than Asaaranda and a good deal broader. And who, as it turned out, was not Tal-Vashoth at all. 

"Ever heard of the Ben-Hassrath?" Iron Bull asked, once they had walked a few paces away from the others.

"Yes. My company commander had some experience with their re-educators." _And Arvaarad was so scared of them he took my mother and left rather than accept punishment_ , Asaaranda didn't add.

The Iron Bull's one-eyed gaze didn't waver. "Ah. Well, I am one--Ben-Hassrath, that is, not a re-educator." 

Asaaranda bit down on his first instinct, which was to tell the guy to fuck off and encourage him with some lightning if he took too long doing it. This wasn't about him, personally, this was about the Inquisition, and the Inquisition could use the Chargers, even if they came with a fucking Ben-Hassrath. 

The Iron Bull waited a moment, then went on. "They want me to report on the Inquisition--and I can share their reports with you in return. Everyone benefits."

"You want to report on the Inquisition--on _me_ \--to the fucking Ben-Hassrath?""

"I won't say anything that will compromise your operations." 

"And you won't say anything about me, personally."

"That won't go over well," Iron Bull said. "I won't tell them anything that's not relevant to the Inquisition, how about that?"

Asaaranda forced himself to stop and _think_ , rather than just react. "Fine. But I read what you send before it goes out." 

"You read Qunlat?" 

Asaaranda's mouth curled up at the corners, but it wasn't really a smile. "My father didn't leave the Qun because he thought it was wrong." 

Iron Bull seemed to be studying him. Asaaranda wondered what he saw. "I can live with that," he said. "You have a deal."

* * *

The best Asaaranda could say about the Iron Bull was that his men seemed to respect him--even if they had an odd way of showing it. Asaaranda avoided the Qunari except for Inquisition business, and the reports he checked were always precise, impersonal, and as promised, they revealed almost nothing about Asaaranda outside his role as Inquisitor. That might be a good sign, or it might mean that Asaaranda wasn't seeing everything Iron Bull sent.

Asaaranda was handing back the latest report when The Iron Bull asked, "So. If your father didn't have a problem with the Qun, why did he leave?" 

Asaaranda narrowed his eyes. "Why do you want to know?"

The Iron Bull shrugged, impressive on a man his size. "Just curious."

"Ben-Hassrath are never 'just curious'."

"I'm not asking as Ben-Hassrath. I'm asking as just a guy who's working for you."

"You're not working for me, you're working for the Inquisition."

"The Inquisition needs an Inquisitor," The Iron Bull said, as though it was obvious.

"And you think it should be me? Seriously?"

"Maybe. What do you think?" It sounded like a genuine question. 

It wasn't one Asaaranda was going to answer, not today. Being in charge of this--whatever this was--he didn't want to think about it. Unfortunately, now that The Iron Bull had brought it up, he'd have to.

He'd rather answer the first question, if he had to pick one. Even if The Iron Bull did spread word to the Ben-Hassrath, there wasn't really anything the Qunari could do to Asaaranda. And nothing he said could help the Qun track down his mother--he hadn't heard from his parents in years. 

"My mother was Saarebas," he said. Sharp, flat. "My father was Arvaarad. They had a relationship. When my mother found out she was pregnant, she told him, and they left rather than face the re-educators."

The Iron Bull didn't react--deliberately didn't react, leaving his face a blank mask.

Asaaranda had imagined the story too many times: his mother, shackled, whispering through sewn-shut lips. His father would have been furious, but must have decided that he couldn't escape blame. So, rather than submit, they ran. And then Arvaarad had tried to make himself head of his own Qun, with his karataam of Tal-Vashoth and his Leash and his pet mage, her mouth unsealed, her shackles lightened, but nevertheless still bound to him.

And his mother--maybe she'd hoped for freedom, she would never say. If she had, she must have been disappointed. 

"Had a relationship," Bull repeated, after a pause. "She have a choice about this _relationship_?"

The last word was acid, and Asaaranda's hands clenched reflexively to fists. "She--" He stopped. His mother had been the one to tell him the story, and that was how she told it. She and her Arvaarad had a relationship. As a child, Asaaranda had never questioned it, and since he left home he hadn't thought much about it. 

But he'd learned too many ugly truths since then not to recognize a pretty lie. His mother hadn't had a single free choice since she came into her magic. She could no more refuse Arvaarad in bed than she could on a battlefield. 

Asaaranda's breath sounded harsh in his own ears as he glared up at the Qunari. "What does it matter? Qunari don't give a shit about choices." 

"In some things we do," The Iron Bull said quietly. 

Asaaranda turned and walked away. It wasn't The Iron Bull he was angry with, not really. He could pick a fight, or he could leave, so he left. 

And there still wasn't anything he could fight, so he went to the tavern. A bottle of something strong, a seat in a dim corner, slouched down and wrapped in a dusty cloak, and even Andraste's fucking Herald could get drunk in peace.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look, there is really no way that sending an angry Vashoth mage to Val Royeaux to deal with the Chantry would in any way help things. Best case, he pisses everyone off. Worst case, he sets the damn city on fire. Cassandra and Leliana can go and report back. 
> 
> And yes, Vivienne and Sera and Blackwall also get recruited, but in the interest of actually finishing this someday I'm not writing those bits.


	4. Redcliffe

Something wasn't right in Redcliffe.

It started with the strange, time-bending rift outside the gates, then got worse with the concerned-looking Inquisition scout who informed them that nobody was expecting the Inquisition--not even the Grand Enchanter.

Asaaranda looked over at Cassandra. "I thought you said the Grand Enchanter spoke to you in Val Royeaux?" 

"She did. Something is not right."

"Again," Varric added. 

Asaaranda sighed. "All right, let's go see what's going on."

The very air in the town felt charged--everyone was frightened, talking in low whispers and glancing sidelong at their little group as they passed. Mages were everywhere, and even without their robes Asaaranda would have noticed--Solas could probably explain how, something about the Fade and the Veil and mana disrupting things, but Asaaranda just knew that the air felt like a thunderstorm was coming and the sixth sense that told him about danger before he could see it was screaming bloody murder. 

That feeling only increased as they made their way through town to the tavern. 

Fiona was certainly expecting them _now_. She stood, flanked by mages on either side, and greeted them. 

"What has brought you to Redcliffe?" she asked, and she was either a very good actor or she was honestly unsure.

"You invited us!" Cassandra burst out. "In Val Royeaux. You asked us to bring the Herald to Redcliffe." 

"You must be mistaken," Fiona said. Her voice was unsure, her forehead wrinkling in confusion. 

"I am not," Cassandra said.

"But I haven't been to Val Royeaux since before the Conclave!" Fiona protested, then raised a hand to rub at her eyebrows. "Why does that sound..."

Then she straightened. "In any case, the situation has changed. The free mages have already pledged themselves to the service of the Tevinter Imperium."

Asaaranda stared. 

"Andraste's ass," Varric spat. "I'm trying to think of a single worse thing you could have done, and I've got nothing."

"As one indentured to a magister," Fiona went on, "I no longer have the authority to negotiate with you."

"Fine." Asaaranda said. "Then tell me who does." _And then_ , he thought, _I'll give him five minutes to convince me getting involved with a bunch of magisters is a good idea before I go get the blighted Templars._

As if on cue, the door opened and in walked two men dressed like Tevinter magisters. The older one smiled--Asaaranda's hand twitched, lightning gathering at his fingers automatically--and then Fiona introduced him. 

"Welcome, my friends. So sorry I couldn't meet you earlier. The southern mages are under my command."

Asaaranda had never had much patience for people whose words said one thing while their whole body said another. Alexius's words were all courtesy, but the very way he moved was a threat, and Asaaranda could feel power gathering around him, pooling like an oil slick. 

"Fiona said she was _indentured_ to a magister?" Cassandra asked, while Asaaranda was still trying to come up with something to say.

"The mages have no legal status in the Imperium. As they were not born citizens of the Imperium, they must work for a period of ten years before gaining full rights. After they are properly trained, they will join our legions."

Fiona's eyes went wide. "Ten _years_? But you said not all my people would be military! There are _children_...those not suited..."

Alexius barely moved, answering her dismissively over one shoulder. "And I'm sure they will all be productive citizens of the Imperium...when their debts are paid." 

Fiona subsided. Asaaranda didn't want to feel sorry for her, but the distress on her face was clear. 

"Enough of this," Alexius said. "You need mages for the Breach, and I have them. I'm sure we can come to an ...agreement... that is amenable to both sides."

Asaaranda wasn't sure of that at all, but he followed the man to the table in the corner, motioning to Varric to follow. If he couldn't have Taarlock here to watch for trickery, the next best thing was a dwarf from the Merchants Guild. Even Taarlock was impressed with their last contract from a surface dwarf.

"Felix, go and fetch a scribe, would you?" Alexius called to the younger man. "Apologies--this is my son, Felix," he added.

But before they could begin, Felix stumbled toward the table, unsteady on his feet. 

Asaaranda shouldn't care about a magister's son from Tevinter, but some instinct had him on his feet to catch the man when he swooned. That same instinct was not surprised when his left hand closed on a scrap of paper.

"Felix!" Alexius jumped up. 

"I'm fine, father," Felix said, unconvincingly, then locked eyes with Asaaranda and nodded, ever so slightly. 

"Come, I'll get your powders," Alexius said, hurrying to take Felix's arm and lead him to the door. "Please excuse me, friends, we will have to continue this at another time. Fiona, I require your assistance back at the castle."

The tavern's other patrons watched the odd party until the door swung shut behind them, and then, with a sort of collective shrug, conversations resumed. 

Varric gave Asaaranda a sharp look, then glanced down at his hand.

Asaaranda uncrumpled the paper and squinted at it in the poor light. "Come to the Chantry," he read aloud. "You are in danger." 

"Well that's something," Varric muttered.

"Might as well check it out," Asaaranda shrugged. "We did come all this way."

* * *

"Good, you're here. Now help me close this, will you?"

Asaarandra wasn't sure what he'd expected to find in the Redcliffe Chantry, but "another time-warping fade rift and an annoyingly attractive Tevinter mage" had not been high on his list of possibilities.

Fade rifts, at least, were routine by now. The Tevinter, though... 

"Who the fuck are you?" Asaarandra asked, once they'd dealt with the last of the demons.

The mage took no notice of the snarl. "Ah, getting ahead of myself again, I see," he said lightly. "Dorian of House Pavus. Most recently of Minrathous. How do you do?" 

"Watch yourself, the pretty ones are always the worst," Iron Bull grumbled. 

Asaarandra didn't need telling.

Dorian of House Pavus's tone didn't change when he responded. "Suspicious friends you have here. Alexius was once my mentor, so my assistance should be valuable, as I'm sure you can imagine."

"Where's Felix?" Asaaranda asked, not ready to comment on the value of any assistance this mage might be willing to provide.

"On his way, I assume. He was to give you the note and then meet us here after ditching his father." 

"So you're the one who sent the note?" 

"I am. Someone had to warn you." Finally the man sounded serious. "Look, you must know there's danger. That much should be obvious, even without the note."

Asaarandra had never properly studied magic. He'd learned from his mother, and then a handful of Tal-Vashoth mages, and none of them had known anything beyond combat magic. He could fry his enemies with lightning or fire, but as Dorian went on about time magic and world-destroying rifts, Asaarandra was entirely out of his depth. 

Finally, Felix arrived. With even stranger news, if such a thing was possible. "My father's joined a cult. Tevinter supremacists. They call themselves 'Venatori.' And whatever he's done for them, he's done it to get to you."

"Me?" Asaarandra felt The Iron Bull shift slightly behind him, ready for a fight. "Why would he care about me?" 

"They're obsessed with you, but I don't know why."

Asaarandra's teeth ground together and he forced himself to release his clenched jaw. Tevinter supremacists--of course they'd be less than thrilled about a Qunari mage wielding power they couldn't. 

This whole "Andraste's Herald" bullshit just kept getting worse. 

* * *

Asaarandra almost let the whole mage rebellion rot with their Tevinter masters. Almost took Cullen's advice and set out for Therinfal Redoubt to find the blasted Templars and deal with the Breach. After that they could handle the mages and anyone else stupid enough to join up with the fucking magisters.

But Cassandra finally convinced him. "We cannot leave a Tevinter magister on our doorstep. We must do something." 

The solution they came up with was far from ideal--and relied on that fucking Vint mage, who had barged through the door with all the theatricality Asaaranda had expected from the man. 

So Dorian and a few of Leliana's scouts would sneak in through a secret tunnel, while Asaaranda walked in the front door.

There had been a long argument about who to send along with the Herald. It was obviously a trap, but on the slim chance that there were to be negotiations, Asaaranda insisted on bringing Varric. 

"I'm touched, truly," the dwarf said, with a sardonic smile. "But I'd place bets on Bianca being the more useful of the two of us." 

"Me too," Asaaranda said. "But I like to be thorough."

The Iron Bull was coming too, largely as a result of his repeated declaration of that fact. Asaaranda had, at one point, worried that he and Cassandra were going to come to blows over it, but finally Cassandra backed down, agreeing to stay in the scouts' camp outside the town.

It made for a fairly impressive group, Asaaranda had to admit. A Qunari with a greataxe that weighed more than most men, a dwarf with a miracle crossbow, and a Vashoth mage almost as big as the Qunari, staff conspicuous across his back.

The guards certainly didn't like it

"Magister Alexius' invitation was for the Herald _alone_ ," a young man snapped as he hurried over.

Asaaranda shrugged. "Then I'll stay here." He kept his tone relaxed, but stared hard at the man to ensure there was no question of whether he meant it. 

The man hesitated, then nodded. "All right. Follow me."

* * *

Alexius sat on a throne, his son at his side. Asaaranda focused on the magister, who was looking far too smug. 

"So tell me, what can the Inquisition give me in exchange for the mages?" Alexius asked.

Now Asaaranda glanced at Felix. Felix's expression didn't change, but Asaaranda thought maybe he had nodded, just slightly. 

"I'd rather talk about this cult of yours," Asaaranda said. "The Venatori?"

Alexius hid his surprise well, but his eyes went wide. "I'm afraid I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Father, they know everything. I told them."

"Felix, what have you..." Alexius started.

"Father, do you know what you sound like?" Felix pleaded.

At that, Dorian sauntered in. "He looks like the villainous cliche everyone expects us to be."

Apparently Dorian had kept himself well hidden, because Alexius looked shocked to see him. "Dorian. I gave you a chance to be part of this, and you turned me down..."

Alexius turned from Dorian to Felix, then turned away from his son to look at Asaaranda again. "You were a mistake. You spoiled the Elder One's plan at the temple and now... Venatori! The Elder One demands this man's life."

On cue, Leliana's scouts emerged from their hiding places and the guards surrounding the hall fell, lifeless, to the ground. 

"No!" Alexius's shout was accompanied by a rush of power, as he pulled an amulet from his robes and focused energy into the amulet. 

Asaaranda heard Dorian yell something, but he couldn't look away from the glowing amulet, the twisting vortex that was growing in the air around it.

Then he felt a jerk, a sensation of pressure and movement, and everything went black.

* * *

He landed in water, dizzy, sick to his stomach, and with a blinding headache that started to clear as he scrambled upright and tried to catch his breath.

He didn’t have time to look around before two men were cursing and charging towards him, swords drawn.

Correction--he saw fire from the corner of his eye as it burst from Dorian’s staff--charging towards _them_. 

They were prison guards: slow, not too bright, and even worse, off-balance because they weren’t expecting trouble. It didn’t take much to take them down, even while feeling like he’d been dropped here by a whirlwind. 

He turned to Dorian, momentarily speechless. 

“Interesting,” Dorian said, crouching down to look at Maker-knows-what hidden in the muck. Asaaranda was getting tired of the crisp Tevinter accent and the amused, inquisitive tone. “I don’t think this is what Alexius intended. He used the amulet as a focus and moved us to what--the closest confluence of arcane energy?”

Asaaranda wasn’t sure if this was meant to be a conversation or a monologue, so he kept his mouth shut. “Hm, we were in the castle hall, so if we’re still in the castle, then... of course!” Dorian sounded delighted, and not a little pleased with himself. “It’s not only _where_ , it’s _when_! Alexius must have moved us through time!”

Asaaranda stared. “He what?”

“Moved us through time--we were working on something like this in Minrathous, but we could never get it to work. Apparently Alexius has made great strides in my absence.” 

Andraste’s tits, of course _that_ was the part that made Dorian look like he’d bitten into a lemon. “What was he _trying_ to do?” 

“I believe he was trying to remove you from time completely--make it so you never existed. Then you couldn’t have disrupted his Elder One’s plan at the Temple of Sacred Ashes. Make sense?”

“No.” 

“I don’t want to _think_ about what this will do to the fabric of the world. We didn’t travel through time so much as punch a hole through it and toss it into the privy. But don’t worry. I’m here, I’ll protect you.” 

Asaaranda couldn’t contain his sharp bark of laughter. 

“Well there’s no need to be like _that_ ,” the mage snapped. 

“You have a plan to get us back?” Asaaranda asked.

“I have some thoughts on that. They’re lovely thoughts, like little jewels...” Dorian smiled half-sarcastically, his ridiculous mustache following the curve of his lips, and Maker curse gorgeous smartass Tevinter mages.

“Let’s go,” Asaaranda snarled, turning around and leading the way out. 

It didn’t get any better outside the waterlogged cell. It got worse. Asaaranda still felt dizzy, and sick, and horrified. It was like a nightmare. His companions were in dismal, wet cells, their bodies wreathed with an evil red glow, eyes burning. The Iron Bull was sharp as ever, and gave a clipped, flat summary of the assasination of the Orlesian Empress, an army of demons, the Inquisition battering itself against the forces the Elder One brought to bear, before collapsing along with the rest of the world. Varric’s usual sardonic humor was sharper than usual, and laced with a deep exhaustion that drained the humor from it. 

And then they found Fiona. What was left of her, pinned inside crystals of red lyrium, leaning against the dank stone wall of her cell. 

That’s when it all became too much, when Asaaranda went from horrified and sick to the absurd desire to laugh, along with a snarling desperate need to make someone _hurt_. He’d felt like this before in the worst of fights, like the time when they were ambushed by a rival lord’s men and half the company was killed or wounded--Herah was killed beside him and he’d almost bled out from a slash to the thigh but he cauterized it with a fire spell and kept fighting.

He’d killed more men than he cared to count that day, quite a few at close quarters with the blade of his staff or the dagger at his belt, snarling and laughing by turns. It was only when the fighting finally stopped and he tried to walk back to the campsite that he felt the searing pain in his leg. 

Today, though--whatever the _fuck_ ‘today’ even was--there were not nearly enough people to fight. All that fury just burned inside him as he told Fiona, “We’ll make Alexius pay for this.” 

Leliana was in the torture chambers. He heard her voice from the corridor, a sharp slap, a cry of pain, and shoved the door open. When the torturer turned to see him, Leliana swung her legs up around his neck, squeezed, and _twisted_ , hard. The man fell to the ground, neck broken. Asaaranda scrambled for the keys, hurried to unlock Leliana’s shackles. 

“You’re alive,” she breathed, stumbling but keeping her balance. 

As she straighened, she met his eyes. Her face was almost unrecognizable--eyes sunken deep into her skull, ringed with dark bruises. Her skin was scarred, creased like an old woman’s. But the fire in her expression matched his own. He didn’t waste her time with explanations he hardly believed himself. “Yes.”

“Do you have weapons?”

He nodded. 

“Good,” she said, walking toward a chest in the corner. “The magister’s probably in his chambers.”

“You’re...not curious how we got here?” Dorian asked. Even his composure seemed shaken.

“No,” Leliana said, pulling out a bow and a quiver.

“Alexius sent us through time,” Dorian continued anyway. “This, his victory, his elder one, it was never meant to be. 

“If we find Alexius, we might be able to stop all this,” Asaaranda cut to the point.

“And mages always wonder why people fear them. No one should have this power.”

“It’s dangerous and unpredictable,” Dorian went on, sounding less horrified and more excited as he spoke. “Before the Breach, nothing we--”

“Enough.” Leliana’s voice was rasping and quiet, but laced with so much acid it was impossible not to obey. Even for the smug Tevinter. “This is all pretend to you,” Leliana sneered. “Some future you hope will never exist. I suffered. The whole world suffered. It was real.”

That shut Dorian up, at least long enough for them to start moving down the hallway, away from that room. Asaaranda was glad of it--much longer and he might have set the place alight, less from conscious intention and more from sheer uncontrollable anger. At least if they kept moving he had to scan for enemies, check doorways, keep track of their path through the maze of corridors. He didn’t have to stand still, looking at the tools these scum had used to all but destroy Leliana. 

The damn Vint kept trying, though. “What happened while we were away?”

“Stop talking.”

“I’m only asking for information!”

“No. You’re talking to fill silence. Nothing happened that you want to hear.”

It was frankly a relief to open a door and face a fade rift, demons spawning right and left, fire and lighting raining from his staff and Dorian’s, Bull’s greatsword cleaving shades in half while arrows whistled through the air. It was a relief to pour his fury into every movement, every spell and sigil, until he felt it hanging in the air like the red mist around his companions. He wanted to just keep fighting--so much easier than thinking. They made their way through the courtyard, into the castle’s hall, fought their way past knots of Venatori until finally Dorian pressed five shards of red lyrium into the sigil on the door and it swung open to reveal Alexius, standing alone, his back to them. 

Asaaranda had been cursing Alexius in his head for hours, invented tortures more and more elaborate as the blood pooled on the floor, but when they entered the room, Asaaranda realized there was no point. The man wouldn't even turn to face them, defeat heavy on his shoulders like a sodden cloak.

“It’s over, Alexius,” Asaaranda said. 

"Indeed it is. I knew you would return. Not that it would be now, but I knew I hadn't destroyed you. My final failure." 

The man still didn't turn around, not even when Dorian asked, voice taut with hurt confusion, "Was it worth it? Everything you did to the world, to yourself?"

"It doesn't matter now," he said. "All we can do is wait for the end."

After all the imagined tortures, what Asaaranda most wanted to do now was to slap the man across the face, do _something_ to jolt him out of his pathetic despair. 

Leliana beat him to it. She hauled a gaunt, ghoulish figure up from the corner where Asaaranda had completely failed to notice it. The head lolled back limply, sunken eyes staring at nothing."

Alexius finally turned, with a cry of alarm. "Felix!"

"That's _Felix_?" Dorian's face went pale, then his jaw set and he snarled, "Maker's breath Alexius, what have you done?" 

"He would have died, Dorian! I saved him!"

Dorian, for the first time since Asaaranda had met him, was speechless. 

Enough of this. "Give us the amulet and we'll let him go," Asaaranda snapped. 

"Let him go, and I swear you'll get what you want," Alexius cried.

Leliana didn't move. Then she looked Alexius in the eye and said, as she drew her knife across Felix's throat, "I want the world back."

Felix didn't make a sound, just collapsed to the ground. Dorian's rough breaths paused, caught on a strangled noise.

Alexius screamed, then flung out a hand and sent Leliana sliding across the floor. 

It was strangely unsatisfying when they finally killed the last of the demons, closed the last of Alexius' infernal time-rifts, and brought the man himself down, the smell of charred skin and singed hair hanging in the air, blood pooling under the magister's body. 

Dorian knelt down and searched through the dead man's robes. "He wanted to die, didn't he? All those lies he told himself, the justifications... He lost Felix long ago and didn't even notice." 

Asaaranda could find no pity for the man, not here, not now. "How do we get back?" he asked.

Dorian straightened. "This is the same amulet he used before," he said. "I think it's the same one we made in Minrathous. That's a relief." 

It was strange--once he was talking about magic, magical theory, Dorian's posture changed, as did his voice. The confidence was back, the sadness and confusion neatly set aside. "Give me an hour to work out the spell he used, and I should be able to reopen the rift--"

"An hour?" Leliana rushed towards them. "That's impossible! You must go now!"

As if on cue, a piercing, inhuman scream tore the air, and the whole castle trembled. Blocks dropped from the ruined walls and raised dust in great clouds. 

"You have to hurry," Varric said. "This... is bad." He looked at Iron Bull. 

Bull nodded. "We'll head out front. Keep them off your tail."

Asaaranda swallowed. But there wasn't time to argue, not when the five of them were alone in a room with the one thing that could fix this, and some god-thing was outside. "We'll make this count," he snarled. Varric and Bull shared a look and headed out.

Leliana stood watching Asaaranda a moment longer. "The only way we live is if this day never comes," she said, voice like steel. Dorian was already bent over the amulet, concentrating intently and muttering under his breath.

Then Leliana turned, readying her bow. "Cast your spell. You have as much time as i have arrows."

A second later, the doors flew open, and a terror flung The Iron Bull's lifeless body to the side, as though the big Qunari were a dirty rag he was discarding. Leliana fired one arrow after another, fluid with the grace of long practice. An arrow hit her shoulder and she stumbled. Asaaranda, horrified, moved to help her, but Dorian's hand grabbed his wrist like a vise.

"You move," he yelled, over the screaming of demons and the rattling of stone, "and we all die." 

Asaaranda watched helplessly as Leliana was trapped, as claws reached down and tore into her throat, blood shooting toward him and--

His vision went black, there was a sensation of motion, intense pressure... and then he stumbled out onto the floor of Redcliffe Castle. 

As it had been. 

He tried to catch his breath, tried not to throw up all over the blessedly clean hall, and glanced around. Dorian really had done it. They were back.

Asaaranda wanted a drink. Several drinks. A bath. To be out of this fucking castle. 

Dorian seemed infuriatingly unfazed. "You'll have to do better than that," he said, while Asaaranda was still making sure all his limbs were in the right places. 

Alexius fell to his knees. 

"It's over, Alexius," Asaaranda said again, too tired for speaches. "You failed."

"You won," Alexius said. "Felix--"

Asaaranda watched as the young man crossed toward his father. He was pale, his eyes ringed with dark smudges, but he was whole, alive.

"It's going to be alright, Father," Felix said, crouching down beside the old man.

"But you'll die!" 

Felix looked his father in the eyes. "Everyone dies."

Alexius was silent as the Inquisition scouts led him away. 

"Well," Dorian said, bright and brittle, "I'm glad that's over with!"

Except, of course, that it wasn't. Fereldan soldiers in fine uniforms marched into the hall, and Dorian seemed to deflate. "Or not..." Dorian added, almost under his breath.

A drink. A bath. A bed. That's all Asaaranda wanted. But no--now, after all this, while he still wasn't entirely sure he wasn't going to throw up at any moment--now the fucking King of bloody Fereldan walked in. 

"Grand Enchanter," called the King. "Imagine how surprised I was to learn that you'd given Redcliffe Castle away to a Tevinter magister!"

"King Alistair!" Fiona gasped as she rushed toward him. 

The King went on before she could continue. "Especially since I'm fairly sure Redcliffe belonged to Arl Teagan." He wasn't yelling, but the bitter sarcasm was even sharper.

"Your Majesty, we never intended..." Fiona started, still off-balance.

"I know what you intended." the King cut her off again. Then some of the anger seemed to drain away, and his next words sounded tired. "I wanted to help you, but you've made it impossible. You and your followers are no longer welcome in Fereldan." 

Fiona froze. "But we have hundreds who need protection! Where will we go?"

They both looked at Asaaranda. 

Well, shit.

"We still need mages to help close the breach," he said. "That _was_ the whole point of coming here, after all."

"And what are the terms of this arrangement?" Fiona asked, voice cold, standing straight, her shoulders back.

"Hopefully better than what Alexius gave you," Dorian cut in. He turned, watching Asaaranda carefully as he asked, "the Inquistion is better than that, yes?" It was almost a challenge.

Asaaranda glared back at Dorian, then turned to the Grand Enchanter. "It seems we have little choice but to accept whatever you offer," she said. 

She almost fooled him. The words, the Orlesian accent, the way she held her ground--all the hallmarks of another arrogant human mage who thought that living with Templars was insufferable oppression. Bring them to the Inquisition, close the damn Breach, and put them back in their towers. Hadn't they just proven they couldn't be trusted?

But she wouldn't meet his eyes. She stared straight ahead, gaze a little unfocused. Her throat worked as she swallowed, and then she glanced up at him for just a moment. 

And Asaaranda saw his mother. Fear, desperation, but worst of all, resignation. Expecting a blow, or the paralyzing pain of the Leash, desperate to avoid it and yet sure there was no way out. Grand Enchanter Fiona was looking up at _him_ the way his mother looked at Arvaarad, and he _would not_ be Arvaarad.

"Join us as allies," he said, voice sharp and rough. "We need you--we need to work together to fix that damn hole in the sky." 

Fiona's face went blank with relief for a moment before she replied. "I'll pray that the rest of the Inquistion honors your promise then." 

"I'd take that offer if I were you," the King said. "One way or another, you're leaving my kingdom."

"We accept," Fiona said. "It would be madness not to." She was still wary, but her gratitude was obvious now that he was looking for the right signs. "I will ready my people for the journey to Haven. The Breach will be closed. You will not regret giving us this chance." 

She nodded to Asaaranda, then to the King, and hurried away. 

The rest of the room remained still while she left. Then King Alistair sighed, signaled with his left hand, and the soldiers marched out. As the last of them were turning to leave, the King gave Asaaranda a brief nod, then turned to follow. 

Once the echo of armored boots faded, Asaaranda leaned against the nearest wall, and closed his eyes.

"So, is anybody going to explain what the hell just happened?" Varric asked. 

Asaaranda opened his eyes, looked at Dorian, whose robes were stained with blood and demon guts, then at Varric, in a fine leather jacket, clean but for the dust on his boots. He looked around at the hall, empty and blessedly free of red lyrium... and laughed until he couldn't breathe. 

He slid down the wall to sit on the floor. They were all watching him, looking confused, so he gestured toward Dorian while he tried to control himself. 

The mage shook his head and began. "Remember what I said about time magic?..."

* * *

Cullen barely let Asaaranda get into the Chantry before he started. "What were you thinking, turning mages loose with no oversight? The veil is torn open!"

Asaaranda glared at Cullen. "What was I supposed to do?" he snapped. "We need them to close the hole in the damn sky."

"I know we need them, but they could do as much damage as the demons themselves!" 

"I'm aware," Asaaranda growled. "I--"

"Enough," Cassandra cut off the argument. "None of us were there. We cannot afford to second guess our people. The sole point of the Herald's mission was to get help from the mages, and that was accomplished." 

Cullen looked like he wanted to reply, but a voice from the shadows beat him to it. 

"The voice of pragmatism speaks!" Dorian said, stepping out into the light and leaning against a pillar. "And here I was just beginning to enjoy the circular arguments." 

Cassandra turned her glare on the mage. "Closing the breach is all that matters."

Asaaranda tried to swallow his irritation. He was tired, and Dorian's complete inability to take anything seriously had not gotten any less annoying during their trek back to Haven.

"We'd better hope this works," Asaaranda said, and while it wasn't a snarl, it still wasn't far off. "I saw what will happen if we fail."

"We will not fail." Cassandra's certainty was comforting. 

Of course, nothing would be decided here. Asaaranda was just glad the argument seemed to be over for now. They would all have plans to make before they could meet, as Cullen suggested, in the War Room. 

But Dorian wasn't finished. "I'll skip the war council, but i would like to see this breach up close if you don't mind."

"You're staying?" Asaaranda asked.

"So hostile! Even after our lovely horrific bonding moments in that red lyrium nightmare?"

Asaaranda just stared at him. 

"By your leave," Dorian continued, with a sardonic little half-bow. "I would stay to assist your Inquisition, yes."

"Of course," Leliana said, before Asaaranda could figure out how to respond. "Your help will be most welcome." 

She turned to Asaaranda. "Perhaps you could show him the Breach?"

It sounded like a perfectly innocent question, but there was no such thing, not from Leliana. Asaaranda nodded. 

"I'll begin preparations to march on the summit," Cullen said, and the others scattered, leaving Dorian and Asaaranda facing each other in the hall. 

"Shall we?" Dorian asked, waving toward the door.

"Alright," Asaaranda said, and led the way out. 

Dorian talked all the way up the mountain. About how cold it was, about the mountains in Tevinter and how superior they were, about his horror at Fereldan so-called cuisine, about the backwater village they found themselves in and its rustic charm. Asaaranda paid only enough attention to react appropriately when Dorian occasionally looked his way. He was grateful at least that he wasn't expected to entertain the man. 

Asaaranda was not in the mood for entertainment. Dorian seemed to have brushed off everything that happened in the nightmare future, but Asaaranda couldn't shake it so easily. 

The Inquisition was made up of many people, but the fact remained that Asaaranda was the only one who could close the rifts. That gave him a responsibility, whether he wanted it or not. And if he failed in that responsibility... he could almost see Leliana's ravaged face, the red mist swirling around his friends, the demons pouring through the castle doors... 

He could not fail. And yet he still didn't truly understand what it was he was supposed to be _doing_ , beyond closing rifts and killing demons. So how could he succeed if he didn't know where to begin?

It had not been a restful trip back from Redcliffe, not with those thoughts for company. 

Dorian fell quiet when they reached the Temple of Sacred Ashes. He looked around, his gaze settling on the crystals of red lyrium standing like pillars around the courtyard. 

"Well, that is unpleasantly familiar," he said quietly. "What _is_ this stuff?"

Asaaranda shrugged. "Bad."

"I had managed to deduce that much," Dorian shot back, his voice back to its usual sarcastically cheerful tone. "But how is it different from ordinary lyrium? How did it come to be here?" 

"Don't look at me," Asaaranda said. "Solas doesn't even seem to know."

"Yes well, Solas spends all of his time dreaming. I assumed you were more practical."

"And that would mean I know all about some strange new lyrium?"

"You haven't studied it? Not at all?"

"Why would I?"

"You're a mage! It's lyrium, corrupted somehow, sprouting from the rock! How could you not be curious?"

"I set people on fire, Dorian, I don't know anything about--this lyrium, Solas's fade shit... I just use magic to fight." 

"What a waste!" Dorian exclaimed. "How could someone like you be content to be little more than an overgrown hedge mage?" 

" _Someone like me?_ What's that supposed to mean?"

"You seem reasonably intelligent, interested in the world, but you're not interested in learning about it?"

"I've been a little busy lately, I don't know if you've noticed the bloody great _hole in the sky_?" Asaaranda gestured toward it. He didn't need to look to know where it was. The mark on his hand burned and pulsed as though it was reaching for the Breach. 

Dorian chuckled. "I suppose that is a fair point," he said, and began to pick his way closer to the center of the Temple. 

The bodies of the dead were still there, untouched. No animal would come here. It took men to be this stupid. 

"And you... fell out of that?" Dorian asked, looking up. "It's a long way to fall."

"I don't remember," Asaaranda said, for what seemed like the thousandth time. 

"Interesting," Dorian said, looking around. He knelt to run his fingers through the ash, walked back and forth, looking up, down, around, until finally he seemed to have satisfied his curiosity and came back to where Asaaranda was still standing. 

"I certainly hope your trick with the mages will work," Dorian said, leading the way out. "I will have to ask Solas what he intends to accomplish--and how."

Asaaranda didn't reply. Their walk back to Haven was all but silent.


	5. Haven

Cullen barely let Asaaranda get into the Chantry before he started yelling. "What were you thinking, turning mages loose with no oversight? The veil is torn open!"

Asaaranda glared at Cullen. "What was I supposed to do?" he snapped. "We need them to close the hole in the damn sky."

"I know we need them, but they could do as much damage as the demons themselves!" 

"I'm aware," Asaaranda growled. "I--" He hesitated. _I had to?_ No, he could have brought them as prisoners, conscripts. Maybe he should have, but... he _couldn't_. Couldn't make himself do it.

"Enough," Cassandra cut off the argument before Asaaranda managed to formulate a response he could say out loud. "None of us were there. We cannot afford to second guess our people. The sole point of the Herald's mission was to get help from the mages, and that was accomplished." 

Cullen looked like he wanted to reply, but a voice from the shadows beat him to it. 

"The voice of pragmatism speaks!" Dorian said, stepping out into the light and leaning against a pillar. "And here I was just beginning to enjoy the circular arguments." 

Cassandra turned her glare on the mage. "Closing the breach is all that matters."

Asaaranda tried to swallow his irritation. He was tired, and Dorian's complete inability to take anything seriously had not gotten any less annoying during their trek back to Haven.

"We'd better hope this works," Asaaranda said, and while it wasn't a snarl, it still wasn't far off. "I saw what will happen if we fail."

"We will not fail." Cassandra's certainty was comforting. 

Of course, nothing would be decided here. Asaaranda was just glad the argument seemed to be over for now. They would all have plans to make before they could meet, as Cullen suggested, in the War Room. 

But Dorian wasn't finished. "I'll skip the war council, but I would like to see this breach up close if you don't mind."

"You're staying?" Asaaranda asked.

"So hostile! Even after all our lovely bonding moments in that red lyrium nightmare?"

Asaaranda just stared at him. 

"By your leave," Dorian continued, with a sardonic little half-bow. "I would stay to assist your Inquisition, yes."

"Of course," Leliana said, before Asaaranda could respond. "Your help will be most welcome." 

She turned to Asaaranda. "Perhaps you could show him the Breach?"

It sounded like a perfectly innocent question, but there was no such thing, not from Leliana. Asaaranda nodded. 

"I'll begin preparations to march on the summit," Cullen said, and the others scattered, leaving Dorian and Asaaranda facing each other in the hall. 

"Shall we?" Dorian asked, waving toward the door.

"Alright," Asaaranda said, and led the way out. 

Dorian talked all the way up the mountain. About how cold it was, about the mountains in Tevinter and how superior they were, about his horror at Fereldan so-called cuisine, about the backwater village they found themselves in and its rustic charm. Asaaranda paid only enough attention to react appropriately when Dorian occasionally looked his way. At least he didn't have to entertain the man. 

Asaaranda was not in the mood for entertainment. Dorian seemed to have brushed off everything that happened in the nightmare future, but Asaaranda couldn't shake it so easily. 

The Inquisition was made up of many people, but the fact remained that Asaaranda was the only one who could close the rifts. That gave him a responsibility, whether he wanted it or not. And if he failed in that responsibility... he could almost see Leliana's ravaged face, the red mist swirling around his friends, the demons pouring through the doors of the throne room... 

He could not fail. And yet he still didn't understand what it was he was supposed to be _doing_ , beyond closing rifts and killing demons. How could he succeed if he didn't know where to begin?

It had not been a restful trip back from Redcliffe, not with those thoughts for company. 

Dorian fell quiet when they reached the Temple of Sacred Ashes. He looked around, his gaze settling on the crystals of red lyrium standing like pillars around the courtyard. 

"Well, that is unpleasantly familiar," he said quietly. "What _is_ this?"

Asaaranda shrugged. "Bad."

"I had managed to deduce that much," Dorian shot back, returning to his usual cheerful sarcasm. "But how is it different from ordinary lyrium? How did it come to be here?" 

"Don't look at me," Asaaranda said. "Solas doesn't even seem to know."

"Yes, well, Solas spends all of his time dreaming. I assumed you were more practical."

"And that would mean I know all about some strange new lyrium?"

"You haven't studied it? Not at all?"

"Why would I?"

"You're a mage! It's lyrium, corrupted lyrium, sprouting from the rock! How could you not be curious?"

"I set people on fire, Dorian, I don't know anything about--this lyrium, Solas's fade shit... I just use magic to fight." 

"What a waste!" Dorian exclaimed. "How could someone like you be content to be little more than an overgrown hedge mage?" 

" _Someone like me?_ What's that supposed to mean?"

"You seem reasonably intelligent, interested in the world, but you're not interested in learning anything about it?"

"I've been a little busy lately, I don't know if you've noticed the damn great _hole in the sky_?" Asaaranda gestured toward it. He didn't need to look to know where it was. The mark on his hand burned and pulsed as though it was reaching for the Breach. 

Dorian chuckled. "I suppose that is a fair point," he said, and began to pick his way closer to the center of the Temple. 

The bodies of the dead were still there, untouched. No animal would come here. It took men to be this stupid. 

"And you... fell out of that?" Dorian asked, looking up. "It's a long way to fall."

"I don't remember," Asaaranda said, for what seemed like the thousandth time. 

"Interesting," Dorian said, looking around. He knelt to run his fingers through the ash, walked back and forth, looking up, down, around, until finally he seemed to have satisfied his curiosity and came back to where Asaaranda was still standing. 

"I certainly hope your trick with the mages will work," Dorian said, leading the way out. 

Asaaranda didn't reply. Their walk back to Haven was all but silent.

* * *

"How is this going to work?" Asaaranda asked Solas. 

As usual, the elf's eyes seemed to bore straight through him. "How is what going to work?" Solas asked, mildly.

"This...thing," Asaaranda waved his marked hand vaguely. "With the Breach." 

"Ah," Solas said, looking up at the swirling rift in the sky. "It is simple: the Breach was created by powerful magic. To close it will require magic of comparable power--more power than one mage could possess."

He looked at Asaaranda, one eyebrow raised as though asking if he understood. Asaaranda nodded.

"Magic that powerful needs to be channeled via some type of focus," he went on. "Corypheus must have had a powerful one to open the breach, but that is lost to us, at least for the moment."

"So what are we going to use?" Asaaranda asked, since Solas seemed to be waiting for him.

Solas nodded toward Asaaranda--or, rather, toward his hand. "That mark on your hand seems to serve as a focus," he said. "It draws power through the rifts, using the energies of the Fade to close the tears in the Veil."

Asaaranda held his hand away from him, looked at it. "How can it do that? I don't know any magic like that!" 

Solas frowned. "It is not your magic," he snapped. "It was given to you, by what means I cannot say, but the magic is far older and more powerful than your own." 

Asaaranda bit his tongue. Somehow, every time he talked to Solas he said the wrong thing. So he waited, and Solas' glare subsided a bit before he went on.

"The mark is a type of focus," Solas said again, "and with care, the wills of many mages can be channeled through it, allowing it to draw on their power as well as its own intrinsic link to the Fade." 

"And that will let me close the Breach?"

"I believe so."

Asaaranda hesitated before asking, "And what will it do to me?"

"I am not certain," Solas said. "However, I do not believe it will kill you."

"Well, that's comforting," Asaaranda grumbled, not quite under his breath.

"Nothing about our current situation is comfortable, 'Herald'." Asaaranda heard something like a sneer in the way Solas said the title. "We will do what we must to stop the Breach from destroying the world." 

Asaaranda felt like a child, being scolded by his mother for a misfiring spell. He swallowed his first response, since further petulance would hardly improve things, and took a deep breath. "Yes," he said. "We will."

* * *

"The mages are ready," Cullen said, arms crossed over his chest. "We'll march on the summit on your order." 

Asaaranda felt his heart beat faster, harder. He swallowed, felt the mark pulse, clenched his left hand to a tight fist. "Well, let's get this over with," he said, without much enthusiasm.

Cullen's crooked grin looked sympathetic. "Indeed. We will march tomorrow morning, at first light." 

Asaaranda walked out of the Chantry and blinked in the afternoon glare. Everything seemed at once too sharp and faraway, unreal. The Breach loomed over everything, and he saw it for a moment as it had been in the ruined courtyard in Redcliffe Castle--had been, and would be if he fucked this up. 

He would feel better if he knew what he was actually _doing_. Solas said the power of the mages would be focused through the _thing_ on his hand, but what did that really mean?

Fucking human... elf... magic bullshit. Asaaranda didn't understand any of it. And the idea of all that power channeled through him made him shudder. 

He needed a drink.

The tavern was quiet, a few soldiers scattered at the tables, Sera chattering to a dwarf woman about who knows what in one corner. Asaaranda got an ale from the nervous bartender and found a place to sit out of the way and watch. 

It was evening when Dorian came in, strutting like a peacock and drawing every eye in the room. He pretended to ignore the attention and ordered his drink, then turned back to the room and saw Asaaranda. 

Dorian sat down across from him, sipped at his ale, made a face, set the mug on the table.

"So," he said, "I hear we'll be fixing the world tomorrow?"

"I hope so," Asaaranda said. He finished the last dregs in his mug and raised a hand to signal for another. "I want to get this over with." 

Dorian watched him, head tilted to one side. "I wonder," he said, "do you really think that will be the end of it? The Inquisition will close the Breach and then disband?"

A girl came over with a fresh mug, and Asaaranda drank from it before answering. "Once the Breach is closed they won't need me, anyway." 

"And you'll...what, return to your mercenary company? Go back to guarding nobles and killing bandits?"

Asaaranda shrugged. "Why wouldn't I?"

"The Herald of Andraste doesn't have higher ambitions?"

Asaaranda glared. " _Fuck_ the Herald of Andraste. I never wanted that shit." 

Dorian sat back in his chair and raised an eyebrow. "I'm not sure you'll be getting off that easy, my friend," he said.

Asaaranda made himself pause, take a deep breath, let go of some of the anger and resentment that came with all the "Herald" crap. Dorian was smart, especially about people. He should probably hear the man out.

So Asaaranda just asked, "Why do you say that?" 

Dorian seemed amused at the forced politeness. "You're more than just the man with a magic hand," he said. "People are frightened, and you are the only one standing against the chaos."

"Bullshit," Asaaranda spat. "The Inquisition does that, not just me."

"Come now," Dorian said, "You can't have failed to notice the way the refugees near Redcliffe looked at you. They _appreciated_ the rest of us, the Inquisition's scouts, the men guarding and the healers and the food and clothes and all. _You_ were something else entirely. You made them feel as though perhaps the Maker had not completely abandoned them to their fate." 

Asaaranda could only stare at him. Then he shook his head and took a long drink. There wasn't enough alcohol in all of Thedas for dealing with this shit. 

Dorian was smiling, amused at Asaaranda's discomfort, but he didn't say anything more.

Asaaranda's teeth ground. His hand throbbed, an ever-present reminder. "They think _I_ \-- _me_ , a Tal-Vashoth mage -- they think _I_ was sent by their Maker. They really believe that."

"They really do. Not all of them, perhaps, but enough." Now Dorian looked almost sympathetic. "That is not something you can simply walk away from." 

Asaaranda reached up with his unmarked hand and scratched the base of his horn. Dorian's gaze followed the motion. "Well, shit," he said. 

"Indeed," Dorian replied, smiling again. "Another drink?"

"Please."

* * *

A few flakes of snow drifted through the bright cold sky as they set off for the destroyed temple. It wasn't a formal march, just a party of scouts at the front, soldiers to the rear, and in between an odd collection of mages. And Asaaranda and his companions. 

He kept quiet on the trek up the mountain. Dorian's comments replayed themselves in his head, made him more aware of the way people looked at him. Even within the Inquisition, even the soldiers and scouts, even the people he'd fought with enough to think of as comrades--they all looked at him differently. Not with the mingled fear, disgust, and veiled hatred he was used to--no, this was different. Fear, yes, but something else he couldn't place. 

It made for an uncomfortable hike. And it didn't get any more comfortable when they arrived at the Temple. The layer of ash was still there, the ruined stonework and charred bodies, the red lyrium and the churning Breach. Solas set about directing the mages, while Cullen directed the soldiers standing behind them. That was some small comfort--at least someone was taking precautions should this all go horribly wrong. 

And then Solas beckoned for him to come toward the rift that marked where the Breach reached toward the ground. "Like the other rifts," he said quietly, walking out toward the mages as Asaaranda moved toward the center of the Temple. 

Asaaranda took a deep breath, and raised his hand. 

It was _not_ like the other rifts. Perhaps it had been like this the first time they had closed a rift here, Asaaranda's memories were hazy. But certainly no other rift had whipped up magic like a hurricane, wind pushing him back as he tried to get closer. 

The cold burn on his hand, snaking up his arm--that he was used to. But then he heard something behind him, and then felt the other mages pouring power through him, fire and ice, burning and freezing at once, his whole body paralyzed with it until with a flash and a roar, it stopped. 

Asaaranda fell to his knees, gasping for breath. He almost lashed out when he felt a hand on his back, then saw Cassandra and let her help him to his feet. He felt hollow, exhausted, shaken as the pain eased, but when he looked up to see the mages, the soldiers, the whole Inquisition watching him, he straightened his back and tried to seem strong. 

Their cheers followed him as he started down toward Haven. 

Dorian was the first to catch up. "Well done," he said, grinning, then pulled a flask from somewhere. "Here, you probably need this." 

Asaaranda, still a little dazed, took a long pull, then blinked in surprise. "What _is_ that?" he asked. Alcohol, yes, but also something... 

Dorian chuckled. "Ah, I forgot, Qunari keep their mages far away from lyrium." 

"It didn't _smell_ like lyrium," Asaaranda snapped, but while the alcohol warmed his stomach and loosened the tension in his shoulders, it could only have been lyrium that eased the hollow, exhausted ache from using so much magic. 

"Well, no, not like southern lyrium, I expect," Dorian said, "In the Imperium we don't treat it like forbidden medicine. Lyrium cocktails are rather a requirement at any decent party." 

Asaaranda rolled his eyes. "Don't let Cassandra know you're handing out lyrium-laced booze."

Dorian laughed. "As though I'd waste it by passing it around," he said. "I only hand it out to mages who by rights should be passed out on the ground but insist on hiking down mountains instead."

"It wasn't that bad," Asaaranda protested, but it was hard to be convincing when he felt so much better now than he had. 

"Of course," Dorian said, without any sincerity whatsoever. 

* * *

Asaaranda stood outside near Leliana's tents and watched the village celebrate, too tired to care about whatever Solas was reporting to the others in the war room. 

The sky looked strange without the Breach. Only a swirl of cloud marked the place it had been. Asaaranda looked down. The mark still pulsed in his palm, the skin of his hand red and irritated. He closed his fist and tried to ignore it. Now that the Breach was gone, perhaps Solas could find a way to remove the damn thing. 

Footsteps crunching through the snow brought him back to reality. Cassandra stepped up beside him. "Solas confirms, the heavens are scarred but calm. The Breach is sealed. We have reports of lingering rifts, and many questions remain, but this was a victory." 

Asaaranda nodded. "What happens now?" he asked.

Before Cassandra could reply, the bells began to ring--alarm, not celebration. Asaaranda looked up. As the sky darkened, torches were flaring, thousands of them, snaking through the passes. Toward Haven. 

"What the-- we must get to the gates!" Cassandra called, and started to run. 

Asaaranda swore under his breath and followed. 

When he got to the gate, Cassandra was already grilling Cullen.

"It's a massive force," he said, grim. "The bulk over the mountain."

Asaaranda just stared. Behind Cullen he could see others running to join them.

"Under what banner?" Josephine asked. 

Cullen turned toward her. "None," he said.

Josephine looked stunned. "None?!"

The gates rocked, light flashing beneath. "I can't come in unless you open," someone called. It sounded like a boy. 

Asaaranda glanced around. Nobody seemed to be capable of deciding what to do. He took a deep breath, and opened the doors, another soldier rushing to help. A man in a spiked Tevinter helmet faced him, then collapsed with a knife in his back. Behind him was--a boy?

Asaaranda rushed toward him. Cullen followed close behind, sword drawn. 

As he approached, the boy started speaking. "I'm Cole. I came to warn you, to help. People are coming to hurt you. You probably already know."

"Coming to hurt--yes, we know!" Asaaranda snapped. "What is this?"

"The templars come to kill you," Cole said.

"Templars!" Cullen shouted, "Is this the Order's response to our talks with the mages? Attacking blindly?"

Cole jumped gracefully back and away from Cullen's anger. "The Red Templars went to the Elder One. You know him? He knows you. You took his mages."

He pointed toward a nearby ridge, moving like a dancer. "There."

Asaaranda squinted into the dark, saw a man and...something else. 

"I know that man," Cullen said, shocked and quiet. "But this Elder One..."

"He's very angry that you took his mages," Cole said. 

Asaaranda broke the shocked silence. "Cullen," he snapped. "Give me a plan, anything." The situation was truly horrifying, but at least he knew what would come next: they had to fight.

Cullen's voice grew stronger as he answered. "Haven is no fortress." He took a deep breath. "If we are to withstand this monster, we must control the battle. Get out there and hit that force. Use everything you can." He nodded toward the trebuchets, recently finished and thankfully ready for use. 

Asaaranda started moving while Cullen turned back to the rest of the Inquisition forces, directing mages and soldiers with all the confidence of a veteran commander. As Asaaranda turned toward the nearest trebuchet he heard Cullen's call. "Inquisition! With the Herald! For your lives, for all of us!"

A squad raced past and began preparing the trebuchet. Cassandra, Dorian, and Varric jogged over to Asaaranda. He couldn't see the others.

"Well doesn't this look like fun," Varric said. "Where do we start?"

"Keep them off us!" someone yelled, before Asaaranda could answer.

"What she said," he replied, and swung his staff around to send flames shooting toward--what _was_ that?

He didn't have time to think until the press slowed. Then he turned over one of the bodies--Varric's arrows pierced its chest, leaving it more whole than the charred remains of Asaaranda's targets. 

"What the _fuck_ is this?" he asked. The others came over and looked, all shaking their heads. 

Dorian's eyes were wide and his voice was strained when he answered. "Well, it looks like they've made use of our favorite evil magic rock. Not exactly tasteful, if you ask me." 

Varric laughed. "Sparkler, I'm less worried about their fashion sense and more worried about how strong they are. Do you _see_ how many arrows I had to put in that guy?" 

He bent to pull them out while the trebuchet crew fired. 

"Come on," Asaaranda said. "The south trebuchet isn't firing, let's find out why." 

"I've got a pretty good guess," Varric muttered, as they ran down the path past the blacksmith's shop. 

Asaaranda knew what they would find, but that didn't really make it any better to see the bodies of Inquisition soldiers strewn like discarded rubbish, or the red templars swarming over the siege engine. He snarled, slammed his staff into the ground and lightning arced between three of them, slowing them enough for Cassandra to take them out with a few swings of her sword.

They fought off wave after wave of the monsters, until they finally won enough time to aim the trebuchet out toward the approaching hoard. "There," Dorian said, as Asaaranda finished swinging the machine into position. "Above the pass. Send the damn mountain down on top of them."

Asaaranda kicked the release mechanism and watched as the projectile hit, exploded, and an enormous avalanche swept through the valley. As the air cleared, Asaaranda strained to see how many torches were still coming, how many soldiers had already made it up the hill toward Haven. 

What he _didn't_ see was the dragon, until it screamed, swooped down and knocked the trebuchet to pieces, setting it on fire for good measure. 

"Shit," Varric shouted, while they picked themselves up. "Who ordered the end of the damn world?" 

"Come on," Asaaranda said. "Back to the gates."

Cullen was waving the last stragglers through, then shoved on the heavy wooden door to close it. His sword was bloody in his hand, his shield dented and smeared with filth. 

"We need to get everybody back to the Chantry," he said, heading up the stairs. "It's the only building that might hold against...that beast." 

He turned back to Asaaranda. "At this point," he said, sounding frustrated, "Just make them work for it." 

Haven was chaos: smoke rising from burning buildings, people screaming, red templars swarming over gaps in the wall. Asaaranda called out to three shocked-looking and very young soldiers, then turned to Cassandra while they hurried over.

"You'll do more good leading soldiers than following me around," he said. "Round up stragglers, then go help Cullen." She hesitated a moment, then nodded. She turned to snap orders at the frightened recruits while Asaaranda hurried away.

They managed to rescue a few villagers on their dash through the streets, but when they finally reached the chantry Asaaranda shuddered to think how many people lay dead in the wreckage of Haven. 

Chancellor Roderick was at the door, the most unlikely welcome Asaaranda could imagine--and he was hurt. He had an arm pressed to his abdomen, where blood was seeping through his robes, and as Asaaranda dashed past, he stumbled, only to be caught by the boy from the gates--Cole.

"He tried to stop a templar. The blade went deep." Cole said, guiding the man to a chair. "He's going to die."

"Charming boy," Roderick gritted out.

Cullen raced up. "Herald, our position is not good. That dragon stole back any time you might have earned us."

"I've seen an archdemon," Cole said, in his odd, quiet voice. "I was in the Fade, but it looked like that." 

"I don't care what it looks like," Cullen snapped. "It's cut a path for that army. They'll kill everyone in Haven."

"The Elder One doesn't care about the village," Cole said. "He only wants the Herald." 

Asaaranda's breath caught.

_A saarebas brings destruction on all who harbor it_. Arvaarad had said it after any mistake: a fire spell that injured an ally, lightning that failed to stop an enemy, uncontrolled magic escaping from a child's fingers. 

"Fine," Asaaranda said, trying not to think of all the bodies in the streets, dead because of him. "He can have me, if it will save everyone else."

"It won't," Cole said, looking down so his face was hidden under the broad brim of his hat. "He wants to kill you. No one else matters, but he'll crush them, kill them anyway. I don't like him."

"You don't like--" Cullen broke off his incredulous response, turned to Asaaranda. "Herald, there are no tactics to make this survivable. The only thing that slowed them was the avalanche. We could turn the remaining trebuchet, cause one last slide."

"We're overrun," Asaaranda said, shaking his head. "To hit them, we'd bury Haven."

Cullen's voice was firm as he met Asaaranda's eyes. "We're dying, but we can decide how. Many don't get that choice." 

Asaaranda took a deep breath, let it out slowly. Before he could answer, Cole spoke again. "Chancellor Roderick can help. He wants to say it before he dies."

Roderick's voice was so quiet Asaaranda had to move closer to hear. "There is a path..." he said, "You wouldn't know it unless you'd made the summer pilgrimage, as I have...the people can escape. She must have shown me, Andraste must have shown me, so I could tell you..."

"What are you on about, Roderick?" Asaaranda snapped. _The people can escape_ \--but how?

Roderick stood, but didn't explain--at least, Asaaranda couldn't find an explanation in his rambling about an overgrown path and Andraste. Bent over, clutching his bleeding abdomen, he came close enough that Asaaranda could smell the blood that was still oozing out, and under it the smell that meant his gut had been cut open. Cole was right. He was going to die. 

Roderick's next words weren't much louder, but they commanded attention somehow. "...this could be more than mere accident. _You_ could be more." 

Asaaranda looked down at the old man. He didn't have time for this. "What about it Cullen? Will it work?"

"Possibly," Cullen allowed. " _If_ he shows us the path. But what of your escape?"

Asaaranda looked away.

"Perhaps you will surprise it," Cullen added, suddenly sounding hesitant, "find a way." He paused for a moment, then strode toward the back of the chantry, shouting orders. 

Cole pulled Roderick's arm across his narrow shoulders, and began moving toward Cullen and the others. Then Roderick stopped. "Herald," he said, breath rasping. "If you are meant for this, if the inquisition is meant for this, I pray for you." 

Asaaranda nodded, then watched as people crowded toward the back of the chantry, carrying whatever they'd managed to save of their lives in Haven. Inquisition soldiers, townspeople, all swarming toward uncertain refuge. The Iron Bull was talking to his Chargers off to one side, then clapped Krem on the back and watched them as they left.

Cullen came back, followed by a handful of scouts. "They'll load the trebuchet. Keep the Elder One's attention until we're above the treeline." The commander's voice again, ringing with certainty. Asaaranda nodded, turned toward the door, but Cullen continued. "If we are to have a chance," Asaaranda looked back. Cullen's eyes bored into him. "If _you_ are to have a chance, let that thing hear you." 

With that, he turned and followed the odd procession through the chantry and, Asaaranda fervently hoped, to safety. 

He turned so see his companions. "Go on," he said, hoping his voice stayed steady. 

Vivienne stepped up and put a hand to his arm. "Maker go with you," she said. 

"This is shite," Sera declared. "I'll go, but you better come after us."

No one else moved. "Cassandra, they'll need you," Asaaranda said quietly.

Cassandra's mouth flattened to a thin line, but finally she nodded. "Andraste guide you, Asaaranda," she said, then turned away. 

He looked at the rest of them--Solas, Blackwall, Varric, The Iron Bull, and, to Asaaranda's surprise, Dorian.

"You don't have to come," Asaaranda said.

"Ha!" Dorian shot back. "You need someone to draw attention. I'm an _expert_ at that." 

"We're going with you, Boss," Bull said. 

And so they did. 

* * *

Haven felt huge, as they fought their way through streets empty of inhabitants but choked with red lyrium monsters. The dragon's screams tore through the eerie quiet that descended in the lulls between skirmishes. 

Asaaranda desperately hoped that while they fought their way through the streets, the rest of the Inquisition and the villagers of Haven were climbing toward safety. How long would it take to get to the treeline? They wouldn't be moving quickly, not with that many people, not when the man who knew the path was dying slowly as they walked. 

He spun his staff and shot fire at another templar, felt the prickling of a barrier dropping around him--Dorian's, he thought. "I'm fine," he shouted. "Save it for the others!"

Then he stumbled back as a shard of red lyrium smashed against the barrier. "You're welcome," Dorian snapped, then went back to casting. 

They passed Cullen's men on the path to the last trebuchet. More corpses in Inquisition uniforms. More people dead because of him, because the Elder One wanted Asaaranda and didn't care who he killed on the way. No more. 

Slowly, painfully slowly, they wheeled the trebuchet around, fighting off monsters the whole time. When it was set, Asaaranda looked at the others. "Go," he said. "Maybe you can still get out.

Blackwall just set his feet more firmly, sword at the ready. Varric stopped retrieving arrows and glared. But The Iron Bull looked Asaaranda in the eye, glanced toward the hills, and nodded.

Bull's huge hand dropped heavily onto Blackwall's shoulder. "Come on," he said. "Don't be an idiot." 

Dorian looked furious. "Don't you dare give up," he snapped, stopping to face Asaaranda as he walked past. "Don't you _dare_."

Asaaranda nodded. 

As the rest of them started to leave, the dragon swooped down, spitting a line of fire that spared the trebuchet but sent Asaaranda flying. He hit the ground hard, rolled, and lay there for a moment, dazed, before looking toward the wall of flame. A shadow was walking toward him. Asaaranda sat up, climbed carefully to his feet. 

The ground shook as the dragon ran up like an oversized puppy, shrieking so close to Asaaranda's ear he felt half-deafened. 

"Enough," the man--was he a man?--snarled, raising his hands. The wall of flame died back, leaving fire playing around the man's feet. 

"Pretender. You toy with forces beyond your ken. No more."

Through the ringing in his ears, Asaaranda strained to hear. 

"Exalt the Elder One, the Will that is Corypheus. You _will_ kneel."

"Fuck you," Asaaranda spat. 

The Elder One ignored him. "I am here for the Anchor. The process of removing it begins now."

He took out a black orb. Red sparks danced around it, but before Asaaranda could look more closely, the Elder One--Corypheus?--reached out a hand, and the mark--the Anchor?--flared to life. The pain shot up his arm, made his knees weak, until he could do nothing more than curl on the ground, trying to breathe. After what seemed like an eternity, the pain ebbed and something that felt like the talons of an enormous bird grabbed his wrist and lifted him to dangle helplessly by one arm. Corypheus was holding him up as if Asaaranda weighed nothing at all. 

And the thing was still talking.

"I once breached the Fade in the name of another, to serve the old gods and the Empire in person. I found chaos and corruption, dead whispers. For a thousand years, I was confused. No more. I have gathered the will to return under no name but my own. To champion withered Tevinter and correct this blighted world. Beg that I succeed. For I have seen the throne of the gods… _and it was empty_."

With that, Corypheus tossed Asaaranda aside, flinging him into the side of the trebuchet. He slammed into it so hard he thought his right horn would break off, and when his vision cleared he felt stupid, slow, his whole body aching. He reached his right hand to feel his head--the horn was intact, but blood oozed from a thin crack at its base. It shifted slightly when he touched it, and the pain took Asaaranda's breath away.

"The Anchor is permanent," the thing growled. "You have spoiled it with your stumbling." 

_Shut up_ , Asaaranda thought, but couldn't summon the energy to say it aloud. _Shut up and kill me already_.

His eyes had started sliding closed when he remembered: Dorian. _Don't you dare give up_. 

There was a sword, lying on the trebuchet platform not far away. Asaaranda reached for it, grateful that his right arm at least had not been wrenched by the monster, then managed to get to his feet. He stood, leaning against the bulk of the trebuchet, trying to catch his breath. Corypheus strode forward, the dragon moving along with him. 

"So be it," Corypheus went on. "I will begin again, find another way to give this world the nation--and god--it requires."

"Shut _up_ ," Asaaranda managed to say it out loud this time, even if it came out as little more than a whisper. And then, from the corner of his eye, over a saddle in the mountains, a flare. 

A flare, just above the treeline. Cullen was telling him they were safe.

Asaaranda's duty was done as soon as he released the trebuchet. _I wonder if my father would be proud_. He was surprised at the thought. But to Arvaarad, dying for a cause was perhaps the only honorable thing a mage could do.

Corypheus was _still_ talking. "And you," he said. "I will not suffer even an unknowing rival. You _must_ die."

Asaaranda had never been good at doing what people said he _must_ do. He was tired, dizzy and sick, he hurt everywhere, but he wasn't just going to stand there and let this monster kill him. 

Asaaranda glanced around for any place he could shelter from the avalanche he was about to unleash. There was a gap in the snow, stark black against white stained with blood. _See, Dorian? I'm not giving up._

Probably he should have said something eloquent, but instead Asaaranda just kicked the trebuchet release and ran toward the gap in the snow.

He heard the thunder of the avalanche, the dragon's scream, stumbled forward and fell through rotten wood onto stone.

* * *

Asaaranda woke up in the dark. Woke up... shit. He could really do without losing chunks of time.

The mark...the Anchor...glowed fiercely. He was glad for the light, but it burned. Although, he realized as he tried to sit up, he was in so much pain anyway that his hand was barely an annoyance. 

He managed to sit, and to look around. He was in some kind of tunnel. Behind him was rock and debris, ahead was open, at least for now. He needed to get out, find someone. Find the Inquisition. 

That meant standing up. 

His legs weren't hurt badly. His knees ached, his left hip felt bruised, and one ankle was a little unsteady, but he could walk. His left arm he kept cradled to his chest, because while his shoulder and elbow both throbbed dully from Corypheus flinging him around, if he tried to straighten his arm, white hot pain shot through them both. 

His right wrist was probably sprained, possibly broken somehow. He must have fallen on it. 

His head was the worst. The headache pulsed with his heartbeat, and where his right horn met his skull it felt like someone had stabbed him. 

Plus, now that he was sitting up, he was dizzy. When he first tried to stand his stomach heaved and he would have thrown up, but there was nothing in his stomach. He spat bile, took a deep breath, and finally managed to stand, his right hand on the wall for balance, shooting spikes of pain from his wrist up his arm if he leaned on it.

Inhale, exhale. Now walk. 

He stumbled forward uncertainly, but as he continued his legs felt more solid, the dizziness faded enough that he could move away from the wall. 

He tried to move faster, but soon had to slow back down. And then he saw light ahead of him. Grey, uncertain light, but light all the same. In his hurry to find an end to the tunnel, he almost stumbled into... demons. Of course, despair demons would come to him now. He didn't have a staff. He was exhausted, and when he reached for his magic it was weak, a spluttering candle. 

And then the anchor flared bright, and a light appeared over the heads of the demons, fade-green tendrils falling to the ground and spreading out until one by one the demons simply disintegrated.

Asaaranda looked at his hand. "Huh," he said. "Thanks?"

When he stepped out of the tunnel, Asaaranda very nearly turned around and went back, demons or no. It was cold, and the wind drove the snow into him like so many tiny darts. There was a fire off to his right--a sign from Cullen? As he got closer it flickered and died.

Asaaranda groaned, and began trudging through the snow. 

The wind was strong. The snow reached his knees. Every step took effort.

Between the dark and the snow it was impossible to tell where he was.

He hoped he wasn't going in circles. 

He found another fire pit, this one only cold ashes.

His feet and hands went numb, which meant they didn't hurt, but made him even more clumsy.

The snow got deeper.

Asaaranda shook, teeth chattering. He was so tired. He wanted to sleep. The snow was soft, he could sink down into it and be out of the wind. 

No. He had to keep moving.

_Don't you dare give up_

Left foot. Right foot. Breathe.

_Don't you dare_

Another fire. Warm embers. Were they nearby?

A ridge. Snow past his knees. 

Keep moving.

Keep moving.

Keep...

Light. Warm light. Fire light. Tents?

He had found them.

Standing on the top of a ridge, looking down at the Inquisition's camp, Asaaranda suddenly couldn't force his feet to take another step. He fell to his knees, breath harsh, cold air like knives. 

It was okay, though, because there were voices--Cassandra, Cullen, others?--and then bodies, warm, human, helping him up, helping him walk down a short steep slope. A fire, and a bed, and hands, helping him lie down. Magic, warm, clear, pouring over him and into him, and he slept.


	6. Dorian

Inquisitor. 

Asaaranda was trying not to think about it, just like he was trying not to think about the mind-breaking spectacle of people kneeling in front of him, singing in the snow. 

It was easier if he stayed away from Skyhold. 

Which was why, to Dorian's extreme and vocal displeasure, they were slogging their way through the Fallow Mire to rescue a handful of soldiers.

"My boots are growing mold," he grumbled, as they turned away from yet another veilfire beacon, yet another fight with fucking corpses. "It's cold and wet and miserable and you couldn't just send some scouts, oh no, the Inquisitor himself, accompanied by his most trusted companions, must go attend to the problem."

Varric chuckled. "Hey, Sparkler, at least the water doesn't come up to your _knees_."

Asaaranda ignored both of them, squinting through the gloom to follow the path. And Dorian wasn't wrong--it was cold, wet and miserable, but at least here nobody stared at him like he was the weird horned male second Andraste. At least here Josephine couldn't call him over to meet with whatever noble had come to poke around the place, making pointed comments about the holes in the walls and the weed-filled courtyards. Here he just had to kill monsters. He knew how to do that.

But before long, the Avaar chieftain fell, the soldiers were freed, and they were on their way back to Skyhold. 

They were a day away when a raven came with a message for Varric. He scanned it quickly, then grinned. "There's someone I want you to meet," he said. "She finally made it to Skyhold."

Asaaranda raised an eyebrow. 

"You'll see," Varric said. Asaaranda's other eyebrow went up. 

"What, now _you're_ keeping quiet?" he asked. "Shit, I hope she's not an assassin or something."

Varric shook his head. "Nah. Just a friend. She's up on the battlements, I told her we'd meet her there. Don't want to cause a fuss."

And as suspicious as Varric was acting, there didn't seem to be any good reason _not_ to follow him through the courtyard and up the steps. 

He didn't recognize the woman who was waiting for them. She was dark-haired, tall for a human and broad-shouldered--she'd have to be, to swing the greatsword she carried across her back. When she heard them, she turned from where she'd been leaning against the low wall. Ice-blue eyes studied him dispassionately, then her face softened into a tight smile for Varric. 

"Inquisitor, meet Hawke, the Champion of Kirkwall."

She almost flinched at the title. Asaaranda knew that feeling. "I don't use that title much these days," she said, offhand and almost joking. 

"I thought you might have some advice about Corypheus, seeing as how we killed him once already," Varric added. Introductions apparently complete, he turned away.

Hawke looked back at the courtyard, leaning on her forearms. "You already dropped a mountain on the bastard, I certainly can't top that."

"I tried to," Asaaranda shrugged. "He dodged." 

That got half a smile. Then Hawke sighed, straightened, and looked at Asaaranda. "Alright, what do you want to know?"

"Varric says you fought him?" Asaaranda asked.

"Fought _and killed_ him," Hawke replied, her tone acid. "The Grey Wardens were keeping him prisoner, there was this whole _thing_ where they needed my blood, we got trapped and the only way out was through him. But he was dead, I swear it."

Varric wandered back over. "Corypheus had a weird Carta clan sending assassins after Hawke," he said. "He was... talking to them, somehow. Really messed up their heads."

"Messed up the Wardens, too," Hawke muttered. "Anders almost lost it down there..." she shook her head, as if shaking something loose. "Maybe they had Corypheus locked up, because they couldn't kill him."

"Maybe nobody can kill him," Varric said.

"Fuck that," Asaranda snapped. "Everything dies."

* * *

Hawke left the next day for Crestwood, to find a Warden friend of hers. Asaaranda would have been happy to go with her, but Josephine and Leliana and Cullen handed him enough reports to keep him up half the night, and that was after hours of discussion and arguments about how to use the Inquisition's limited influence as well as how to increase it. The Game, the women kept telling him, was vitally important. Status and posturing and intrigue, things he knew nothing about and hated, besides. 

At least Cullen seemed almost as annoyed by the whole business as Asaaranda was. 

And then Mother Giselle found him. With a letter from Dorian's father, asking them to _trick_ Dorian into a meeting in Redcliffe. Asaaranda couldn't hide his snarl, not even for a Chantry Mother. 

"I'm not going to trick Dorian into anything," Asaaranda snapped. 

Mother Giselle sighed, handed him a piece of paper. "Perhaps when you read it, you will change your mind." 

Not bloody likely, Asaaranda thought, and a quick scan of the letter confirmed it. Magister Halward of House Pavus sounded like just another pompous noble asshole.

Dorian had installed himself in the library as soon as Skyhold began to acquire books. Now he was sitting in a chair by the window with one volume open on his lap, another balanced on the arm of the chair, and three or four more books on the floor and the windowsill, within easy reach. He was glaring, or maybe just concentrating, but he looked up when Asaaranda walked over, and his face smoothed into its usual glib cheerfulness. 

Asaaranda didn't understand that: Dorian was certainly intelligent, often sarcastic, and occasionally thoughtful, but he always acted as though he didn't care about anything beyond his own comfort. What was the point? 

"There's a letter for you," Asaaranda said, and Dorian stood up.

"Is it a naughty letter?" Dorian asked, moving just a little closer to Asaaranda than he needed to. "Is that why you're delivering it yourself?"

Asaaranda really did not want to think about that, not with Dorian's warm brown eyes looking up at his, teasing, testing. He made himself take a half step back.

"No," he said. "It's from your father."

Dorian's face went blank, his body froze. "From my father? And what, pray tell, does Magister Halward want?"

"A meeting."

Dorian's lips were pinched to a taut line, his eyes dark. "Show me this letter," he said.

Asaaranda handed it over, and Dorian's disconcerting stillness broke into agitated pacing. 

" _I know my son?_ Typical. What my father knows about me would barely fill a thimble."

Asaaranda wasn't sure what to say, so he stayed silent. Dorian studied him for a moment. "Let's go," he said. "If it's a trap, we'll escape and kill everyone. You're good at that!" 

* * *

So instead of going to Crestwood, they set off the next day for Redcliffe.

Asaaranda wasn't sure what to expect when they pushed open the tavern door, but even so, it was a shock to see Dorian's father. 

Mostly, it was a shock to watch Dorian's reaction. The whole trip from Skyhold he'd been quieter than usual, sharper, more sarcastic. But still carefully constructing the air of nonchalant arrogance that Asaaranda had only seen slip once before, in those last moments at Haven.

Here, though, the mask shattered as soon as Dorian heard his name.

"Father?" 

Asaaranda looked between the two men, hardly registering what was said. Magister Halward wore heavy velvet robes, stood just taller than Dorian, and his voice and bearing made it clear he was used to being obeyed. 

And he was talking to Asaaranda. "Inquisitor, I never meant for _you_ to be involved." 

Before Asaaranda could come up with a response, Dorian turned on his father again. "Of course not," he hissed, body ratcheted tight, words clipped. 

After a while Dorian looked over his shoulder in Asaaranda's direction, not meeting his eyes. "I prefer the company of men. My father disapproves."

"The company of men?" Asaaranda asked. He found himself bracing for a blow, for the paralyzing pain of Arvaarad's leash, too baffled to process Dorian's formal euphemism.

"Did I stutter? Men, and the company thereof, as in sex. Surely you've heard of it?" 

His tone was defiant, but Dorian still wasn't actually looking at him.

"I... yes? I mean, I've... " He stopped, glanced up at Dorian, whose eyes flashed with anger, then across the room at the Magister, whose lip curled in distaste.

Magister Halward sighed. "I should have known that's what this was about."

Asaaranda felt his fingertips spark and clenched his hands to fists. But Dorian stepped toward his father. "No," he said, and his voice was surprisingly flat. 

Dorian paced restlessly as he talked, while Magister Halward stood still, shocked.

"Dorian-- I only wanted what was best for you," he said, when Dorian went quiet for a moment.

"You wanted what was best for you... for your fucking _legacy_." Dorian spat the words, then turned his back on his father for the first time since they entered. He leaned against the sticky counter of the bar. No one spoke. 

Asaaranda walked over to stand at Dorian's left. Defending him, he thought wryly, glancing at the magister, still half-expecting a burst of power and pain that would bring him to his knees.

"Should we get out of here?" Asaaranda asked, quiet.

"Yes," Dorian said, in a low voice. "Let's go."

They stopped at the Crossroads for the night, where Inquisition forces had set up a permanent camp. And as usual where there are soldiers, someone had set up a tavern. 

Asaaranda and Dorian handed over their horses to a scrawny kid with a gap-toothed grin, and let a scout show them to their quarters, narrow bunks in a hastily repaired house. 

When they were alone, Dorian sighed deeply, leaned against the wall and gazed out the glassless window toward the hills. 

"He's a good man, my father." Dorian's voice broke the silence. "He just... doesn't understand."

"You don't have to defend him," Asaaranda said. 

Dorian looked over. "I suppose I don't."

The silence stretched again. "Do you have parents?" Dorian asked. "I mean--Qunari don't, but you aren't actually Qunari, so..." He sighed. "Never mind."

Asaaranda looked down at his hands. "It's alright. I'm Vashoth, I was born outside the Qun. So yeah, I had parents. Have, probably."

"You don't see them?"

"No."

Dorian turned away from the window to glance at Asaaranda, then sighed.

"Maker knows what you must think of me now," he said, obviously trying for nonchalance but not really coming close.

Asaaranda looked at the back of Dorian's head, then out through the window where the warm evening sunlight turned the hills gold. 

"I certainly don't think any less of you," he said carefully. 

Dorian turned, gave Asaaranda a sharp look, as though he wasn't sure Asaaranda was serious. 

"Is that right?" Dorian asked, a faint smile pulling at his eyes.

Then he sighed. "At any rate," he said, lighter, "Time to drink myself into a stupor. Care to join me?"

Asaaranda tried to shake himself free of the odd detachment he'd felt ever since Dorian had said _Father_.

"I don't know," he said, smirking. "This far south, I'm not sure anything they have will meet your exacting standards."

"Ha!" Dorian said, brushing past Asaaranda and leading the way outside. "I'm sure you're right. But today I'll make an exception."

* * *

The tavern keeper had sour ale, which Dorian rejected out of hand, and a Fereldan whiskey that was actually not bad. To Asaaranda's taste, anyway, and Dorian stopped complaining after his second refill. 

It was a tiny place: a counter, a handful of rickety tables, gaps between the planks of the walls that let in enough cold wind to make Dorian shiver theatrically and glare. But it was quiet, and no one stared--well, not much. Certainly no awed travelers coming up to stammer thanks to the Herald of Andraste. 

"You know," Dorian said, refilling their glasses. "No one will thank you, whatever happens."

Asaaranda didn't follow his logic. Dorian nodded toward the faint glow from Asaaranda's left hand. Oh. That.

"I'd rather they didn't," Asaaranda said. "I never asked for any of this."

Dorian looked at him, head tilted to one side. "I suppose you didn't," he said. "But you've done it, regardless--and I must say, you've done well."

Asaaranda sipped his drink, set the glass back on the table, spinning it between his hands. "If I refuse to excel at my task, what then is my Purpose?"

"I'm sorry?" Dorian looked so genuinely baffled Asaaranda had to smile.

"It's from ...I don't know, somewhere in the Qun. Arvaarad used to say it."

"Arvaarad?"

"My father."

Dorian hesitated. "Arvaarad is a Qunari ...name, is it not?"

"Yes," Asaaranda sighed. "Arvaarad holds the leash of Saarebas. My mother was Saarebas, my father was Arvaarad, they left when she found out she was with child." He paused. "Me."

"Ah." 

There was a long silence, then Dorian spoke again. "He didn't take a new name? I thought most Tal-Vashoth--"

Asaaranda shook his head. "Most Tal-Vashoth also take new roles."

Dorian stared blankly for a moment, then his eyes went tight and cold. "I've seen what those...handlers...do to mages. You're saying your _father_..." he paused, gesturing vaguely. 

"Used a Leash to control my mother. And me, later." 

"That's barbaric!"

Asaaranda bristled. "At least they don't care who I sleep with," he snapped, then bit his tongue. Why was he offended? Dorian was _right_.

For a long moment Dorian stared at him, and then he laughed, sharp-edged and cutting. He picked up his glass. "Barbarians, all of us," he said, like a toast.

Asaaranda shook his head, but raised his glass and drank too.

Dorian refilled their glasses. "Look on the bright side," he said. "Around here, we'll fit in just fine." 

* * *

It was incredible how quickly Skyhold changed from a ruin to a working fortress. By the time they got back from Redcliffe, the tavern was well-stocked enough that even Dorian had to work to find something to complain about.

The Iron Bull and his Chargers were there as usual, drinking and laughing and teasing each other. It made Asaaranda miss Shokrakar and the Valo-Kas. They had been his kith, his--family, humans would probably call it--and they'd spent too many nights to count in taverns like this one, teasing each other with the same easy familiarity that the Chargers seemed to have. 

Taarbas had taught Asaaranda to read in places like this, scowling at the others for spilling ale too close to his precious paper. Katoh had taught him how to eat with human nobles, practicing before some fancy dinner. Shokrakar had told him about the re-educators, the scars on her wrists and ankles, the days spent in pitch-dark cells without food, without water, shackled against the wall too tightly to sit down. 

And now here he was, watching a Ben-Hassrath and his mismatched band of mercs, and all of them were supposedly working for Asaaranda. 

_Supposedly._ Asaaranda knew enough to know that the Ben-Hassrath worked for the Qun above all else. If The Iron Bull was taking orders from the Inquisition, it was because those orders suited him, suited his superiors, suited the Qun. As soon as Asaaranda gave Bull an order that forced him to choose between the Inquisition and the Qunari, The Iron Bull would do his duty, because to _not_ do his duty to the Qun would be unthinkable.

Asaaranda knew all this, and even so, when The Iron Bull called him over, he made his way across the tavern to sit with the big Qunari and his crew. 

They introduced themselves, spent a couple minutes being self-consciously polite, and then the not-a-mage Dalish mage turned to the dwarf sitting next to her, Skinner asked Krem something about their next job, and The Iron Bull turned to Asaaranda and grinned. 

"They're a crazy bunch of assholes," Bull said. "But they're _my_ crazy bunch of assholes, you know?"

Asaaranda laughed, settled himself more comfortably. "I do." He looked around at the group, took a drink, and sighed. 

"Look," The Iron Bull said, "Just ask me what you want to ask."

Asaaranda raised an eyebrow. "Is it that obvious?" 

"Probably not to anyone else, don't worry about it. Of course you'd be curious." 

Asaaranda took another drink to buy himself some time. Even still he couldn't quite find a good way to ask, so he just... asked. "What's it like? Growing up Qunari?"

Bull smiled, the way his mother had when Asaaranda learned to cast a tricky spell. 

"You know about the tamassrans, right?" Asaaranda nodded, and Bull went on. "We grow up with a bunch of kids our same age, and then when we're old enough, the tamassrans send us off for training in whatever job we're selected for." 

"So you really don't have parents?" Asaaranda asked.

"Only technically," Bull grinned. "They haven't figured out a way to avoid all the messy breeding stuff."

"But you don't know who yours were?"

"Nah. Doesn't really matter. The tamassrans figure out who should mate with who. The man's job's done once the woman is pregnant, and her job only lasts till the baby's weaned. There's a record somewhere, so they can manage the breeding."

"It's kept secret?"

"I guess so? I haven't heard of anyone trying to find out who their parents were. It's just... not important the way it is here."

"What about mage kids?"

The Iron Bull glanced over Asaaranda's shoulder for just a second, then he took a drink before replying. "They get sent for training as soon as their magic appears."

"Training?"

"Yeah. I don't know much about it."

"So when do they get their mouths sewn shut?" Asaaranda snapped.

The Iron Bull's gaze didn't waver, but his mouth pinched just a little tighter. "I don't know," he said, quiet. 

"Of course you don't."

"Look, there's a lot I don't know. I know what I need to know to do my job. Everything beyond that, there's other people who figure that out. I don't have to understand."

Asaaranda was trying to keep hold of his temper, but he could feel the buzz of electricity between his clenched teeth. "You really believe that?" 

"Maraas shokra..." The Iron Bull started, and Asaaranda stood up so abruptly his chair toppled backwards. There was a tight moment where even Asaaranda wasn't sure what he was going to do next--just long enough for the rest of his brain to overrule his already-sparking hands. Instead he turned sharply and walked out. 

Lightning was still straining at his fingertips. Asaaranda climbed up to the battlements, stepped into a ruined tower on the highest corner, and flung out his arms. The storm flashed and crackled around him for a full minute before he let it die out, his hands dropping to his sides. 

Asaaranda couldn't shake the image of his mother as a child, with new-sprouted horns and missing teeth, pulled away from everything she ever knew. Shackled, lips sewn shut, alone.

No, she wouldn't have been alone. Qunari don't do "alone." She would have been with other mage children maybe, or teachers. 

Or maybe not. Maybe mage children were too dangerous to keep together. 

He never asked. His mother didn't talk about life before. Arvaarad only used life in the Qun to teach lessons, and the upbringing of mage children had never come up. The Tal-Vashoth mages he'd trained with later hadn't been interested in talking much at all, snapping instructions when necessary but otherwise silent. 

It had been years since Asaaranda had missed his mother. Now he wished he knew where to find her. Imagined walking up to the house with some of the Inquisition's soldiers and taking her away from Arvaarad for good. He'd imagined that a lot, his first year away. Now he could actually do it, if he was willing to waste Inquisition time on something that purely personal. 

A knock on the broken door startled him back to the present. 

Cullen was standing in the doorway with a soldier's unreadable face. "Inquisitor," he said, "My apologies, but a sentry reported some disturbance. Is everything alright?"

Asaaranda glared at him, then thought about some frightened sentry telling the Commander about the tempest in the ruined tower. Some taut line across his shoulders snapped, and he relaxed. "It's fine," he said, scratching at the base of his left horn, "sorry for scaring your men."

Cullen's Professional Soldier demeanor relaxed a little, and one corner of his mouth twisted into a wry half-smile. "If they're that frightened of a mage letting off a bit of frustration, they have a lot to learn."

Asaaranda sighed. "How did you know?" 

"I was a templar in Kirkwall for ten years. I saw a few annoyed mages in that time."

"I suppose you would have," Asaaranda said, picking his way over planks and rubbish toward the door. 

Cullen acknowledged that with a one-shoulder shrug. When Asaaranda reached the door, Cullen turned and they walked out onto the battlements. Asaaranda gazed down into the valley, where a city of tents was growing, lit by a whole constellation of campfires. 

"Goodnight, Inquisitor," Cullen said, and walked toward his office. Asaaranda watched him leave, then looked down into the quieting courtyard, the lights in the tavern and the keep. 

Inquisitor. He was the one all these people looked to. Counted on. Their future was far more important than his past. 

He had work to do. 

* * *

Asaaranda was up early the next morning--too early, but his sleep had been full of whispers and nightmares and as soon as it was light enough to see without a candle he pulled on his clothes, grabbed his staff, and headed down to escape the too-big room.

The door into the rotunda was open, warm light inside, and Solas was standing in the middle of the floor, hands braced against the little table. He looked up as Asaaranda entered. "Ah, Inquisitor," he said. "What can I do for you?"

He was unreasonably cheerful for this hour of the not-really-morning. Asaaranda blinked hard. "I--what else can you tell me about Corypheus?"

There was a stack of papers, reports from Leliana, sitting on the desk in his room. He'd read all of them, then read them again, and still it amounted to almost nothing.

Solas' expression hardened. "Varric and Cassandra seem to know more about him, you could ask them."

"I'll ask them too," Asaaranda said. "I need all the advice I can get."

"Well!" Solas said. "I"m flattered."

Asaaranda sighed. It was always like this with Solas. He respected the man's knowledge, found his tales of the fade fascinating if sometimes disturbing, but every time they talked, Asaaranda managed to say the wrong thing. Solas always ended up annoyed.

"I didn't mean--" he tried, then stopped. He took a deep breath. "I just meant... you said his orb was Elven, and I wondered if you might know more."

Solas too seemed to be forcing himself to relax. "Of course," he said. "My apologies."

Nothing Solas said was particularly reassuring, or even particularly useful. Asaaranda's mood hadn't improved by the time he walked back out into the Great Hall. 

* * *

Hawke was waiting for them in Crestwood, and Scout Harding had sent back some lovely reports about undead rising to attack the town. It was time to go.

Varric wanted to come because of Hawke, so Cassandra was staying at Skyhold. She claimed she had some work to do with Leliana and Josephine, which, while it might have been true, was too convenient to be unrelated to the actual fistfight he'd broken up between the dwarf and the Seeker over Hawke.

Asaaranda had annoyed Solas again, Dorian seemed to be avoiding him, Asaaranda himself was avoiding the Iron Bull. Sera's over-the-top disgust at the descriptions of the place was obviously a cover for real fear, and Vivienne hadn't deigned to say more than 'hello' in weeks. If something strange was happening with Wardens, Asaaranda didn't want to bring another Warden along, so that ruled out Blackwall.

Some kind of leader-of-the-Inquisition he was. Couldn't muster up four people who were all on speaking terms with each other.

It was Varric who convinced him to ask Dorian to come. "Look," he said, as they were finishing dinner, "we've got a necromancer hanging around, and we're going to fight corpses. He'll whine about it, but he'll come." 

So Asaaranda made his way to the library, where Dorian was scowling furiously at a book as thick as his arm. 

He looked up when Asaaranda's shadow fell on the pages. "Inquisitor," he said, with exaggerated politeness. "What can I do for you?" He stood up, setting the book on the chair. 

"We're leaving for Crestwood tomorrow," Asaaranda said, feeling inexplicably awkward. He wasn't used to giving orders. "They say the place is full of undead, so we could use a necromancer."

"Usually necromancy is used on corpses _before_ they start walking," Dorian said. "But point taken." 

He glanced up at Asaaranda, not quite making eye contact. "I'll collect my things," he said, and brushed past.

And Josephine told him to take The Iron Bull, in an apparent attempt to keep trouble away from a particularly important round of nobility paying official visits to Skyhold.

They set off for Crestwood in blowing snow. By the time they got out of the high mountains, Asaaranda was riding with Varric and trying to ignore the unsubtle flirting behind them.

* * *

"What the hell is wrong with you?" 

Asaaranda straightened slowly, leaning on his staff. A gash on his arm was bleeding freely, and his ribs felt bruised. The bandits at Caer Bronach had been tougher than he'd expected.

And now Dorian was yelling at him. 

"What's that supposed to mean?" he snapped, because yelling would involve taking deep breaths, which right now he would very much rather not do. 

"Are you _trying_ to get yourself killed? You didn't even cast a barrier!" Dorian was glowering, fists clenched and jaw tight. Behind him, Bull raised one eyebrow.

"I'm fine," Asaaranda snapped again. He settled his staff on his back and started walking toward the door that looked like it might go to the dam controls. 

Dorian made a series of sounds that sounded like they might have been cut-off beginnings of words, then followed. 

They watched the water recede as they trudged back to the village. The inn, which clearly hadn't had patrons in a long time, was at least warm and dry and smelled of cooking food. Asaaranda shrugged off his wet cloak and sat carefully in one of the too-small chairs. 

The others settled in as well, and a girl scurried out with a pitcher of ale and four mugs. 

"Oh!" she gasped, as she set everything down on the table near Asaaranda. "You're hurt! I -- I'll go see if anyone has elfroot they can spare!"

Asaaranda looked down. His arm was still oozing blood. "It's fine," he said, "I'm--"

"You. Hush." Dorian glared at Asaaranda, mouth pinched and flat. Then he turned to the girl and smiled. "Please do," he said, all charm, "and if you have something we could use as a bandage, we would be most grateful."

The girl nodded, and hurried off. 

Asaaranda looked around. The Iron Bull looked a little sympathetic, but Varric was carefully refusing to meet his eyes, and Dorian was still seething. So Asaaranda kept his mouth shut and filled the mugs with ale.

The girl came back soon after with a bowl of water, cloths over her shoulder, and an older woman following behind. The girl set the things on the table and vanished, while the older woman frowned at Asaaranda and began to wash the wound.

"You can't just leave something like this to heal on its own," she said, sounding a little too much like Katoh. Or someone's mother. "It could get infected." 

Asaaranda stayed quiet and tried to ignore Dorian's pointed look.

Once she'd applied a poultice and wrapped his arm in clean cloth, she nodded, refused the coin Asaaranda tried to offer, and strode out the door, shaking her head.

Once _that_ was done, they could get on with their dinner and send a raven to Skyhold to tell Josephine and the others that they had mostly-accidentally claimed a castle for the Inquisition.

The next morning Asaaranda was too stiff and sore to hide it. Dorian glared and stalked ahead, down the hill to where the old village was emerging from the muck.

Bull walked next to Asaaranda. "You don't know any defensive spells, do you?" he asked, quietly. 

Asaaranda glanced over. Bull's face was as unreadable as usual, but at least he didn't look judgmental. "A Saarebas is a weapon," he said, echoing Arvaarad, "Its power should be turned on the enemy."

Bull didn't respond. 

"You ever fight with Qunari Saarebas?" Asaaranda asked. He tried not to make it sound like an accusation. 

"Nah," Bull said. "In the big battles I guess there were a few, but I never had any in my squad. That's specialized work."

Asaaranda snorted. "That's one way to put it." He should leave it alone, he knew he should, but he couldn't. "But hey, the Qun says people like me--well, we aren't really people at all, so who cares what happens to us."

Bull was quiet for long enough that Asaaranda thought he wasn't going to say anything to that. "Look," Bull said finally. "It's not that I _like_ what happens to Qunari mages. It's just not for me to question."

"Of course not," Asaaranda said, swallowing old, old bitterness. "Maraas shokra. Anaan essam Qun."

This time Bull really didn't respond.

* * *

Dorian seemed to be avoiding Asaaranda. They closed a rift, which stopped the undead. They met Hawke and the mysterious Warden, who told them about yet another faraway mess the Inquisition was somehow going to have to untangle. 

Dorian kept his distance all they way back to Skyhold, so it was a surprise when, after they returned, the man practically hauled Asaaranda into the corner of the library he'd claimed as his own.

"Is it true?" he asked, trying for his usual glib tone but clearly furious. "Qunari mages don't learn defensive spells?"

"Why would they?" Asaaranda shot back. "The Qunari are not known for being concerned with the well-being of their mages."

"I know _that_ , but even just from a tactical standpoint--"

"Dorian, if we could protect ourselves well enough, maybe their Leashes wouldn't work, and then where would they be?" Dorian's face darkened, any pretense of lightheartedness sliding away. "Besides," Asaaranda added, "We're pretty durable." He meant it as a joke, mostly, but it fell flat. 

"You absolute _idiot_ ," Dorian exploded. " _You_ are not a chained Saarebas, some... some _weapon_ to be carelessly flung into fights! You're the bloody Inquisitor!" 

Dorian's voice echoed in the stone tower, and a few heads turned to watch. Dorian ignored them. 

"You are going to learn to protect yourself," he said, no longer shouting but no less intense. "Get your staff and meet me in the courtyard." 

"Now? Dorian--"

"Yes now, before you manage to anger another darkspawn, magister, demon, walking corpse, or whatever unheard-of mess you find next." 

Asaaranda was supposed to be meeting Leliana, but Dorian did not look like he would take 'no' for an answer. Besides, it's not like Leliana wasn't hearing this whole conversation. She would hardly be wondering why he hadn't come. 

"Fine," Asaaranda said. "Meet you in the courtyard."

* * *

" _No_ ," Dorian called, exasperated. "You are the only mage in _existence_ who has learned to cast a mind blast but can't manage a barrier."

Asaaranda let his staff drop into the dirt, while the dust he'd flung away from himself settled back to earth. Every time he tried to mimic Dorian, he ended up doing this instead. They had been out here for hours, gone through all the lyrium potions Dorian had brought, and he was feeling lightheaded and drained. And too tired to yell back. 

"It's simple, it's just like that except the force curls _in_ , instead of pushing _out_ ," Dorian went on. He swept his staff around and a barrier shimmered in the light. Effortless. Like it was nothing. 

Asaaranda just glared. 

Dorian let the barrier disperse and sighed. "Come on, it's getting late. I need a drink." 

It was embarrassing. Dorian had been able to do this when he was eight years old. He'd said that, halfway through one of his incredulous outbursts. But something about the whole process didn't make _sense_. It wasn't a problem of not having enough power, or not shaping the sigils properly, or anything he could recognize as wrong. It felt like Dorian was telling him that if he just moved his arms differently he'd be able to fly. 

Asaaranda sighed. "Fine."

* * *

They'd ended up having a lot more than _a_ drink. Several hours later, Asaaranda was still arguing with Dorian.

"I can not _believe_ that you are sitting there telling me there's nothing wrong with raising corpses. You're _actually saying that_!" 

Dorian tossed back his drink and slammed the glass down on the table. "It's not like the corpses can object," he replied, with that infernal fucking _smirk_ of his.

"We just got back from fighting undead corpses that were _trying to destroy a whole town_ and you're telling me oh, it's fine, really, murder skeletons are a great idea!"

"No, I'm telling you that they're just another kind of weapon. Is using undead to kill someone that much worse than killing them with pointy bits of metal?"

"Yes!"

"Why? You're dead either way!"

Asaaranda opened his mouth, closed it, thought for a second. It had been a long day. And a long night. The Herald's Rest was empty except for a few drunk soldiers, all of whom were staring openly. 

He glared at Dorian, snatched the bottle of brandy and poured himself another drink to buy time.

"They're fucking _corpses_ , Dorian--"

"--and I already said what difference does it make if--"

"You can raise a whole army of corpses! A man can only use one sword!"

"You can rain lightning over quite an extensive area, my friend." 

"Oh, you've noticed? I didn't think you'd bother paying attention to an _overgrown hedge mage_."

"That was hardly meant as an insult. I appreciate both your magical talent and your... other assets."

Dorian looked him up and down, deliberately, then met his eyes. The smirk had grown into a toothy grin. Asaaranda wasn't sure why he suddenly felt short of breath.

"Look," the bartender interrupted. "I know you're the Herald or the Inquisitor or whatever, but I'd like to close up, so maybe you could continue this _conversation_ somewhere else?" The man made no particular attempt to soften his sarcasm.

"What an excellent idea." Dorian stood up, swaying slightly. "Come, Inquisitor," he said, gesturing toward the door in mock deference. 

Asaaranda rolled his eyes but headed for the door, with Dorian following. 

"I simply cannot understand why someone who is otherwise so pragmatic draws the line at borrowing a few dead bodies," Dorian continued as they made their way across the yard and up the stairs. "It makes no _sense_ , surely you can see that."

"Oh, sure, and next we'll start summoning demons--hey, we could have our own demon army! Just like Corypheus! It'll be fantastic!"

They were in the Great Hall now, and Asaaranda's voice echoed off the stone. A few people called out sleep-muddled complaints to shut up. 

Asaaranda reached the door to his quarters, Dorian still on his heels.

"Demons are _entirely_ different," Dorian said, in a hissing whisper. "Even an 'overgrown hedge mage' should know that."

Asaaranda spun around to face him. "Maferath's _balls_ Dorian," he whispered back, struggling to keep his voice down, then stopped, his train of thought derailed completely.

Dorian was close enough that Asaaranda could feel the heat from his body in the drafty room. He was just standing there, watching, not looking away or backing down. That damn self-satisfied smirk was still on his face, cheeks flushed and eyes sharp.

 _The pretty ones are the worst._ Shit. Asaaranda reached behind him and opened the door, backed through it, stood back to let Dorian pass. Dorian followed, brushing unnecessarily close and keeping his eyes locked with Asaaranda's. He'd stopped smirking.

Asaaranda shoved the door closed, and then he was reaching out, pinning Dorian's shoulders against the wood of the door, bending down and kissing him, hard.

Dorian didn't hesitate, just stretched up to put a hand behind Asaaranda's head, his other hand pulling Asaaranda's hips closer. 

"You are the _worst_ ," Asaaranda growled, pulling back just enough to get the words out.

Dorian's warm chuckle sounded entirely too pleased with himself. "I really am, aren't I?"

"You--"

"Come on," Dorian said, slipping free and heading-- _sauntering_ , damn him--toward the stairs. "You have a whole tower to yourself, benefits of being the boss and all, there's no need to act like--well, no, I take that back, I am all in favor of acting like savages, but perhaps we could do it with more than a bit of oak planking between us and whoever is in the Great Hall, hm?" 

He tossed the whole little speech back over his shoulder as he climbed the stairs. Asaaranda was frozen for a second, watching, then took the steps two at a time until he caught up. "Fucking arrogant Vint prick," he muttered, half-shoving Dorian up the last few stairs. 

"If you're trying to get me to make a very bad joke about the finer qualities of this particular Vint prick, you're not going to succeed," Dorian said primly. Then he spun to face Asaaranda and backed him against the bedframe, his hands almost uncomfortably hot against Asaaranda's chest. "Now. Where were we?" 

* * *

They were out in the Western Approach, fighting their way into another damn fortress, when it happened.

Dorian was focused on the mage above them, and didn't see the big warrior moving up behind him. Asaaranda did. But he was too far away, too drained to disable the man quickly, and Dorian couldn't hear his shout over the chaos. 

And suddenly it made sense--what, exactly, Asaaranda still couldn't say, but he swept his staff out and around, curled the magic back on itself, and with less effort than he'd thought possible, a barrier sprang to life around Dorian just in time to block the descent of the enormous axe. 

_That_ got Dorian's attention. He froze the Venatori solid and moved away while Asaaranda flung bolts of lightning until the man fell.

Before long the fight was over and they were squinting in the bright sunlight, looking around the keep they'd claimed, waiting for Harding's scouts to come help hold the place.

And Dorian was mad at Asaaranda. Again.

"That was _you_ , wasn't it?" Dorian hissed, keeping his voice down in front of the others but making his displeasure more than clear. "You won't protect yourself, but you'll protect _me_? I don't believe you!" He subsided for a minute as they headed down some stairs to look over the blighted canyons, then added. "How is it that I spend _hours_ trying to teach you the simplest barrier spell and you can't manage that, but now just... on your own... you figured out how to cast one on me, all the way across that courtyard?"

"I don't know!" Asaaranda snapped, loud enough that one of the scouts turned to look. "I don't know," he repeated, quieter this time. "It just... made sense, somehow."

Dorian looked up with narrowed eyes, studying Asaaranda's face. "You are the most unbelievably frustrating man I have ever met," he growled. 

They were standing very close. Dorian's eyes flashed, and Asaaranda couldn't look away. 

" _Kaffas_ ," Dorian swore, then turned and strode ahead. 


End file.
